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FAR-AWAY  STORIES 


BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR 

IDOLS 

JAFFERY 

VIVIETTE 

SEPTIMUS 

DERELICTS 

THE    USURPEB 

STELLA   MARIS 

WHERE     LOVE     IS 

THE   ROUGH   ROAD 

THE      RED      PLANET 

THE       WHITE       DOVE 

SIMON       THE       JESTER 

A      STUDY      IN      SHADOWS 

A      CHRISTMAS      MYSTERY 

THE       WONDERFUL       YEAR 

THE        FORTUNATE        YOUTH 

THE        BELOVED        VAGABOND 

AT     THE      GATE      OP     SAMARIA 

THE       GLORY       OF       CLEMENTINA 

THE    MORALS    OF    MARCUS     ORDEYNE 

THE    DEMAGOGUE    AND   LADY    PHAYRE 

THE    JOYOUS    ADVENTURES    OF    ARISTIDE    PUJOL 


FAR-AWAY    STORIES 


BY 

WILLIAM  J.  LOCKE 

AUTHOR  OF  "the  ROUGH  ROAD,"   "THE  RED  PLANET," 
'the  wonderful  YEAR,"   "THE  BELOVED  VAGABOND,"   ETC. 


NEW  YORK:  JOHN  LANE  COMPANY 
LONDON:  JOHN  LANE,  THE  BODLEY  HEAD 
TORONTO:  S.    B.    GUNDY  .'.  MCMXIX 


COPYRIGHT,    1919,     BY 
JOHN     LANE    COMPANY 


THE'PLIMPTON'PKESS 
NOKWOOD'MASS-U-S'A 


TR. 


/ 


6023 


TO  THE  READER 

DEAR  SIR  OR  MADAM:  — 

Good  wine  needs  no  bush,  but  a  collection  of  mixed  vintages 
does.  And  this  book  is  just  such  a  collection.  Some  of  the 
stories  I  do  not  want  to  remain  buried  for  ever  in  the  museum 
files  of  dead  magazine-numbers  —  an  author's  not  unpar- 
donable vanity;  others  I  have  resuscitated  from  the  same 
vaults  in  the  hope  that  they  still  may  please  you. 

The  title  of  a  volume  of  short  stories  is  always  a  difficult 
matter.  It  ought  to  indicate  frankly  the  nature  of  the  book 
so  that  the  unwary  purchaser  shall  have  no  grievance  (except 
on  the  score  of  merit,  which  is  a  different  affair  altogether) 
against  either  author  or  publisher.  In  my  title  I  have  tried 
to  solve  the  problem.  But  why  "Far-away?"  Well,  the 
stories  cover  a  long  stretch  of  years,  and  all,  save  one,  were 
written  in  calm  days  far-away  from  the  present  convulsion 
of  the  world. 

Anyhow,  no  one  will  buy  the  book  under  the  impression 
that  it  is  a  novel,  and,  finding  that  it  isn't,  revile  me  as  a 
cheat.  And  so  I  have  the  pleasure  of  offering  it  for  your 
perusal  with  a  clear  conscience. 

You,  Dear  Sir  or  Madam,  have  given  me,  this  many  a 
year,  an  indulgence  beyond  my  deserts.  Till  now,  I  have 
had  no  opportunity  of  thanking  you.  I  do  now  with  a  grate- 
ful heart,  and  to  you  I  dedicate  the  two  stories  that  I  love 
the  best,  hoping  that  they  may  excuse  those  for  which  you 
may  not  so  much  care,  and  that  they  may  win  continuance 
of  that  which  is  to  me,  both  as  a  writer  and  as  a  human 
being,  my  most  cherished  possession,  namely,  your  favour- 
able regard  for 

Your  most  humble  and  obedient  Servant  to  command, 

W.  J.  LOCKE 
June,  igig 


6303'?5 


CONTENTS 

PAGB 

The  Song  of  Life 11 

Ladies  in  Lavender 43 

Studies  in  Blindness 

I.  An  Old- World  Episode 73 

II.  The  Conqueror 105 

III.  A  Lover's  Dilemma 131 

IV.  A  Woman  of  the  War 152 

The  Princess's  Kingdom 181 

The  Heart  at  Twenty 207 

The    Scourge         221 

My  Shadow  Friends 261 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE 

NGN  cuivis  homini  contingit  adire  Corinthum. 
It  is  not  everybody's  good  fortune  to  go  to 
Corinth.  It  is  also  not  everybody's  good 
fortune  to  go  to  Peckham — -still  less  to  live  there. 
But  if  you  were  one  of  the  favoured  few,  and  were 
wont  to  haunt  the  Peckham  Road  and  High  Street, 
the  bent  figure  of  Angelo  Fardetti  would  have  been 
as  famihar  to  you  as  the  vast  frontage  of  the  great 
Emporium  which,  in  the  drapery  world,  makes  Peck- 
ham illustrious  among  London  suburbs.  You  would 
have  seen  him  humbly  threading  his  way  through 
the  female  swarms  that  clustered  at  the  plate-glass 
windows  —  the  mere  drones  of  the  hive  were  fooling 
their  frivolous  fives  away  over  ledgers  in  the  City  — 
the  inquiry  of  a  lost  dog  in  his  patient  eyes,  and  an 
unconscious  challenge  to  Plufistia  in  the  wiry  bush 
of  white  hair  that  protruded  beneath  his  perky  soft 
felt  hat.  If  he  had  been  short,  he  might  have  passed 
unregarded;  but  he  was  very  taU  —  in  his  heyday  he 
had  been  six  foot  two  —  and  very  thin.  You  smile 
as  you  recaU  to  mind  the  black  frock-coat,  some- 
what white  at  the  seams,  which,  tightly  buttoned, 
had  the  fit  of  a  garment  of  corrugated  iron.  Al- 
though he  was  so  tall  one  never  noticed  the  incon- 

11 


12  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

siderable  stretch  of  trouser  below  the  long  skirt.  He 
always  appeared  to  be  wearing  a  truncated  cassock. 
You  were  inclined  to  laugh  at  this  queer  exotic  of 
the  Peckham  Road  until  you  looked  more  keenly 
at  the  man  himself.  Then  you  saw  an  old,  old 
face,  very  swarthy,  very  lined,  very  beautiful  still 
in  its  regularity  of  feature,  maintaining  in  a  little 
white  moustache  with  waxed  ends  a  pathetic  brag- 
gadocio of  youth;  a  face  in  which  the  sorrows  of 
the  world  seemed  to  have  their  dwelling,  but  sor- 
rows that  on  their  way  thither  had  passed  through 
the  crucible  of  a  simple  soul. 

Twice  a  day  it  was  his  habit  to  walk  there;  shops 
and  faces  a  meaningless  confusion  to  his  eyes,  but 
his  ears  alert  to  the  many  harmonies  of  the  orches- 
tra of  the  great  thoroughfare.  For  Angelo  Fardetti 
was  a  musician.  Such  had  he  been  bom;  such  had 
he  Uved.  Those  aspects  of  life  which  could  not  be 
interpreted  in  terms  of  music  were  to  him  unin- 
telligible. During  his  seventy  years  empires  had 
crumbled,  mighty  kingdoms  had  arisen,  bloody  wars 
had  been  fought,  magic  conquests  been  made  by 
man  over  nature.  But  none  of  these  convulsive 
facts  had  ever  stirred  Angelo  Fardetti's  imagina- 
tion. Even  his  country  he  had  well-nigh  forgotten; 
it  was  so  many  years  since  he  had  left  it,  so  much 
music  had  passed  since  then  through  his  being. 
Yet  he  had  never  learned  to  speak  English  cor- 
rectly; and,  not  having  an  adequate  language  (save 
music)  in  which  to  clothe  his  thoughts,  he  spoke 
very  Kttle.  When  addressed  he  smiled  at  you 
sweetly  like  a  pleasant,  inarticulate  old  child. 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  13 

Though  his  figure  was  so  familiar  to  the  inhabi- 
tants of  Peckham,  few  knew  how  and  where  he 
lived.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  lived  a  few  hundred 
yards  away  from  the  busy  High  Street,  in  Formosa 
Terrace,  at  the  house  of  one  Anton  Kirilov,  a  musi- 
cian. He  had  lodged  with  the  Kirilovs  for  over 
twenty  years  —  but  not  always  in  the  roomy 
splendour  of  Formosa  Terrace.  Once  Angelo  was 
first  violin  in  an  important  orchestra,  a  man  of 
mark,  while  Anton  fiddled  away  in  the  obscurity 
of  a  fifth-rate  music-hall.  Then  the  famous  violinist 
rented  the  drawing-room  floor  of  the  Kirilovs'  little 
house  in  Clapham,  while  the  Kirilovs,  humble  folk, 
got  on  as  best  they  could.  Now  things  had  changed. 
Anton  Kirilov  was  musical  director  of  a  London 
theatre,  but  Angelo,  through  age  and  rheumatism 
and  other  infirmities,  could  fiddle  in  public  no  more; 
and  so  it  came  to  pass  that  Anton  Kirilov  and  Olga, 
his  wife,  and  Sonia,  their  daughter  (to  whom  Angelo 
had  stood  godfather  twenty  years  ago),  rioted  in 
spaciousness,  while  the  old  man  lodged  in  tiny 
rooms  at  the  top  of  the  house,  paying  an  infinitesi- 
mal rent  and  otherwise  fiving  on  his  scanty  savings 
and  such  few  shillings  as  he  could  earn  by  copying 
out  parts  and  giving  lessons  to  here  and  there  a 
snub-nosed  Httle  girl  in  a  tradesman's  back  parlour. 
Often  he  might  have  gone  without  sufficient  nour- 
ishment had  not  Mrs.  Kirilov  seen  to  it;  and  when- 
ever an  extra  good  dish,  succulent  and  strong, 
appeared  at  her  table,  either  Sonia  or  the  servant 
carried  a  plateful  upstairs  with  homely  compliments. 

"You  are  making  of  me  a  spoiled  child,  Olga," 


14  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

he  would  say  sometimes,  "and  I  ought  not  to  eat  of 
the  food  for  which  Anton  works  so  hard." 

And  she  would  reply  with  a  laugh: 

"If  we  did  not  keep  you  ahve,  Signor  Fardetti, 
how  should  we  have  our  quatuors  on  Sunday  after- 
noons?" 

You  see,  Mrs.  Kirilov,  like  the  good  Anton,  had 
lived  all  her  life  in  music  too  —  she  was  a  pianist; 
and  Sonia  also  was  a  musician  —  she  played  the 
'cello  in  a  ladies'  orchestra.  So  they  had  famous 
Sunday  quatuors  at  Formosa  Terrace,  in  which 
Fardetti  was  well  content  to  play  second  fiddle  to 
Anton's  first. 

You  see,  also,  that  but  for  these  honest  souls  to 
whom  a  musician  like  Fardetti  was  a  sort  of  blood- 
brother,  the  evening  of  the  old  man's  days  might 
have  been  one  of  tragic  sadness.  But  even  their 
affection  and  his  glad  pride  in  the  brilliant  success 
of  his  old  pupil,  Geoffrey  Chase,  could  not  mitigate 
the  one  great  sorrow  of  his  life.  The  violin,  yes; 
he  had  played  it  weU;  he  had  not  aimed  at  a  great 
soloist's  fame,  for  want  of  early  training,  and  he  had 
never  dreamed  such  unreaHsable  dreams;  but  other 
dreams  had  he  dreamed  with  passionate  intensity. 
He  had  dreamed  of  being  a  great  composer,  and  he 
had  beaten  his  heart  out  against  the  bars  that  shut 
him  from  the  great  mystery.  A  waltz  or  two,  a  few 
songs,  a  catchy  march,  had  been  published  and  per- 
formed, and  had  brought  him  unprized  money  and 
a  Httle  hateful  repute;  but  the  compositions  into 
which  he  had  poured  his  soul  remained  in  dusty 
manuscript,  despised  and  rejected  of  musical  men. 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  15 

For  many  years  the  artist's  imperious  craving  to 
create  and  hope  and  will  kept  him  serene.  Then, 
in  the  prime  of  his  days,  a  tremendous  inspiration 
shook  him.  He  had  a  divine  message  to  proclaim 
to  the  world,  a  song  of  life  itself,  a  revelation.  It 
was  Ufe,  indestructible,  eternal.  It  was  the  seed 
that  grew  into  the  tree;  the  tree  that  flourished 
lustily,  and  then  grew  bare  and  stark  and  perished; 
the  seed,  agaia,  of  the  tree  that  rose  unconquerable 
into  the  laughing  leaf  of  spriag.  It  was  the  kiss  of 
lovers  that,  when  they  were  dead  and  gone,  hved 
iounortal  on  the  hps  of  grandchildren.  It  was  the 
endless  roll  of  the  seasons,  the  majestic,  triumphant 
rhythm  of  existence.  It  was  a  cosmic  chant,  telling 
of  things  as  only  music  could  tell  of  them,  and  as  no 
musician  had  ever  told  of  them  before. 

He  attempted  the  impossible,  you  will  say.  He 
did.  That  was  the  pity  of  it.  He  spent  the  last  drop 
of  his  heart's  blood  over  his  sonata.  He  wrote  it 
and  rewrote  it,  wasting  years,  but  never  could  he 
imprison  within  those  remorseless  ruled  lines  the 
elusive  sounds  that  shook  his  being.  An  approxi- 
mation to  his  dream  reached  the  stage  of  a  com- 
pleted score.  But  he  knew  that  it  was  thin  and  life- 
less. The  themes  that  were  to  be  developed  into 
magic  harmonies  tinkled  into  commonplace.  The 
shell  of  this  vast  conception  was  there,  but  the  shell 
alone.  The  thing  could  not  hve  without  the  un- 
seizable,  and  that  he  had  not  seized.  Angelo  Far- 
detti,  broken  down  by  toil  and  misery,  fell  very 
sick.  Doctors  recommended  Brighton.  Docile  as 
a  child,  he  went  to  Brighton,  and  there  a  pretty 


16  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

lady  who  admired  his  playing  at  the  Monday  Popu- 
lar Concerts  at  St.  James's  Hall,  got  hold  of  him  • 
and  married  him.  When  she  ran  away,  a  year  later, 
with  a  dashing  yomig  stockbroker,  he  took  the  score 
of  the  sonata  that  was  to  be  the  whole  interpreta- 
tion of  hfe  from  its  half-forgotten  hiding-place, 
played  it  through  on  the  piano,  burst  into  a  passion 
of  tears,  in  the  uncontrollable  ItaUan  way,  sold  up 
his  house,  and  went  to  lodge  with  Anton  Kirilov. 
To  no  son  or  daughter  of  man  did  he  ever  show  a 
note  or  play  a  bar  of  the  sonata.  And  never  again 
did  he  write  a  line  of  music.  Bravely  and  humbly 
he  faced  hfe,  though  the  tragedy  of  failure  made 
him  prematurely  old.  And  all  through  the  years 
the  sublime  message  reverberated  in  his  soul  and 
haunted  his  dreams;  and  his  was  the  bitter  sorrow 
of  knowing  that  never  should  that  message  be  de- 
livered for  the  comforting  of  the  world. 

The  loss  of  his  position  as  first  violin  forced  him, 
at  sixty,  to  take  more  obscure  engagements.  That 
was  when  he  followed  the  Kirilovs  to  Peckham. 
And  then  he  met  the  joy  of  his  old  age  —  his  one 
pupil  of  genius,  Geoffrey  Chase,  an  untrained  lad  of 
fourteen,  the  son  of  a  weU-to-do  seed  merchant  in 
the  High  Street. 

"His  father  thinks  it  waste  of  time,"  said  Mrs. 
Chase,  a  gentle,  mild-eyed  woman,  when  she  brought 
the  boy  to  him,  "but  Geoffrey  is  so  set  on  it  —  and 
so  I've  persuaded  his  father  to  let  him  have  lessons." 

"Do  you,  too,  love  music.*^"  he  asked. 

Her  eyes  grew  moist,  and  she  nodded. 

"  Poor  lady  1    He  should  not  let  you  starve.    Never 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  17 

mind,"  he  said,  patting  her  shoulder.  "Take  com- 
fort.   I  will  teach  yom*  boy  to  play  for  you." 

And  he  did.  He  taught  him  for  three  years.  He 
taught  him  passionately  aU  he  knew,  for  Geoffrey, 
with  music  in  his  blood,  had  the  great  gift  of  the 
composer.  He  poured  upon  the  boy  all  the  love  of 
his  lonely  old  heart,  and  dreamed  glorious  dreams 
of  his  future.  The  Kirilovs,  too,  regarded  Geoffrey 
as  a  prodigy,  and  welcomed  him  into  their  circle, 
and  made  much  of  him.  And  little  Sonia  fell  in 
love  with  him,  and  he,  in  his  boyish  way,  fell  in  love 
with  the  dark-haired  maiden  who  played  on  a  'cello 
so  much  bigger  than  herseff.  At  last  the  time  came 
when  Angelo  said: 

"My  son,  I  can  teach  you  no  more.  You  must  go 
to  Milan." 

"My  father  will  never  consent,"  said  Geoffrey. 

"We  will  try  to  arrange  that,"  said  Angelo. 

So,  in  their  simple  ways,  Angelo  and  Mrs.  Chase 
intrigued  together  until  they  prevailed  upon  Mr. 
Chase  to  attend  one  of  the  Kirilovs'  Sunday  con- 
certs. He  came  in  church-going  clothes,  and  sat 
with  irreconcilable  stiffness  on  a  straight-backed 
chair.  His  wife  sat  close  by,  much  agitated.  The 
others  played  a  concerto  arranged  as  a  quintette; 
Geoffrey  first  violin,  Angelo  second,  Sonia  'cello, 
Anton  bass,  and  Mrs.  Kirilov  at  the  piano.  It  was 
a  piece  of  exquisite  tenderness  and  beauty. 

"Very  pretty,"  said  Mr.  Chase. 

"It's  beautiful,"  cried  his  wife,  with  tears  in  her 
eyes. 

"I  said  so,"  remarked  Mr.  Chase. 


18  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"And  what  do  you  think  of  my  pupilp"  Angelo 
asked  excitedly. 

"I  think  he  plays  very  nicely,"  Mr.  Chase  ad- 
mitted. 

"But,  dear  heavens!"  cried  Angelo.  "It  is  not 
his  playing!  One  could  pick  up  fifty  better  violinists 
in  the  street.    It  is  the  concerto  —  the  composition." 

Mr.  Chase  rose  slowly  to  his  feet.  "Do  you 
mean  to  tell  me  that  Geoffrey  made  up  all  that 
himself. »" 

"Of  course.    Didn't  you  know.^" 

"Will  you  play  it  again.^" 

Gladly  they  assented.  When  it  was  over  he  took 
Angelo  out  into  the  passage. 

"  I'm  not  one  of  those  narrow-nunded  people  who 
don't  beheve  in  art,  Mr.  Fardetti,"  said  he.  "And 
Geoff  has  ahready  shown  me  that  he  can't  sell  seeds 
for  toffee.  But  if  he  takes  up  music,  will  he  be  able 
to  earn  his  Uving  at  it.^" 

"Beyond  doubt,"  replied  Angelo,  with  a  wide 
gesture. 

"But  a  good  living.^  You'll  forgive  me  being 
personal,  Mr.  Fardetti,  but  you  yourself " 

"I,"  said  the  old  man  humbly,  "am  only  a  poor 
fiddler  —  but  your  son  is  a  great  musical  genius." 
"I'll  think  over  it,"  said  Mr.  Chase. 
Mr.  Chase  thought  over  it,  and  Geoffrey  went  to 
Milan,  and  Angelo  Fardetti  was  once  more  left 
desolate.  On  the  day  of  the  lad's  departure  he  and 
Sonia  wept  a  Httle  in  each  other's  arms,  and  late 
that  night  he  once  more  unearthed  the  completed 
score  of  his  sonata,  and  scanned  it  through  in  vain 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  19 

hope  of  comfort.  But  as  the  months  passed  com- 
fort came.  His  beloved  swan  was  not  a  goose,  but 
a  wonder  among  swans.  He  was  a  wonder  at  the 
Milan  Conservatoire,  and  won  prize  after  prize  and 
medal  after  medal,  and  every  time  he  came  home 
he  bore  his  blushing  honours  thicker  upon  him. 
And  he  remained  the  same  frank,  simple  youth, 
always  filled  with  gratitude  and  reverence  for  his 
old  master,  and  though  on  familiar  student  terms 
with  all  conditions  of  cosmopoHtan  damsels,  never 
faithless  to  the  little  Anglo-Russian  maiden  whom 
he  had  left  at  home. 

In  the  course  of  time  his  studies  were  over,  and 
he  returned  to  England.  A  professorship  at  the 
Royal  School  of  Music  very  soon  rendered  him 
financially  independent.  He  began  to  create.  Here 
and  there  a  piece  of  his  was  played  at  concerts.  He 
wrote  incidental  music  for  solemn  productions  at 
great  London  theatres.  Critics  discovered  him,  and 
wrote  much  about  him  in  the  newspapers.  Mr. 
Chase,  the  seed  merchant,  though  professing  to  his 
wife  a  man-of-the-world's  indifiference  to  notoriety, 
used  surreptitiously  to  cut  out  the  notices  and  carry 
them  about  in  his  fat  pocket-book,  and  whenever 
he  had  a  new  one  he  would  lie  in  wait  for  the  lean 
figure  of  Angelo  Fardetti,  and  hale  him  into  the 
shop  and  make  him  drink  Geoffrey's  health  in  sloe 
gin,  which  Angelo  abhorred,  but  gulped  down  in 
honour  of  the  prodigy. 

One  fine  October  morning  Angelo  Fardetti  missed 
his  walk.  He  sat  instead  by  his  window,  and  looked 
unseeingly  at  the  prim  row  of  houses  on  the  opposite 


20  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

side  of  Formosa  Terrace.  He  had  not  the  heart  to 
go  out  — and,  indeed,  he  had  not  the  money;  for 
these  walks,  twice  daily,  along  the  High  Street  and 
the  Peckham  Road,  took  him  to  and  from  a  queer 
httle  Italian  restaurant  which,  with  him  apparently 
as  its  only  chent,  had  eked  out  for  years  a  mysteri- 
ous and  precarious  existence.  He  felt  very  old  — 
he  was  seventy-two,  very  useless,  very  poor.  He 
had  lost  his  last  pupil,  a  fat,  uninteUigent  girl  of 
thirteen,  the  daughter  of  a  local  chemist,  and  no  one 
had  sent  him  any  copying  work  for  a  week.  He  had 
nothing  to  do.  He  could  not  even  walk  to  his  usual 
sparrow's  meal.  It  is  sad  when  you  are  so  old  that 
you  cannot  earn  the  right  to  live  in  a  world  which 
wants  you  no  longer. 

Looking  at  unseen  bricks  through  a  small  win- 
dow-pane was  httle  consolation.  Mechanically  he 
rose  and  went  to  a  grand  piano,  his  one  possession 
of  price,  which,  with  an  old  horsehair  sofa,  an  oval 
table  covered  with  a  maroon  cloth,  and  a  chair  or 
two,  congested  the  tiny  room,  and,  sitting  down, 
began  to  play  one  of  Stephen  Heller's  Nuits  Blanches. 
You  see,  Angelo  Fardetti  was  an  old-fashioned  musi- 
cian. Suddenly  a  phrase  arrested  him.  He  stopped 
dead,  and  remained  staring  out  over  the  poHshed 
plane  of  the  piano.  For  a  few  moments  he  was  lost 
in  the  chain  of  associated  musical  ideas.  Then  sud- 
dently  his  swarthy,  lined  face  ht  up,  and  he  twirled 
his  little  white  moustache  and  began  to  improvise, 
striking  great  majestic  chords.  Presently  he  rose, 
and  from  a  pile  of  loose  music  in  a  comer  drew  a 
sheet  of  ruled  paper.     He  returned  to  the  piano, 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  21 

and  began  feverishly  to  pencil  down  his  inspiration. 
His  pulses  throbbed.  At  last  he  had  got  the  great 
andante  movement  of  his  sonata.  For  an  horn-  he 
worked  intensely;  then  came  the  inevitable  check. 
Nothing  more  would  come.  He  rose  and  walked 
about  the  room,  his  head  swimming.  After  a  quarter 
of  an  hour  he  played  over  what  he  had  written,  and 
then,  with  a  groan  of  despair,  fell  forward,  his  arms 
on  the  keys,  his  bushy  white  head  on  his  arms. 

The  door  opened,  and  Sonia,  comely  and  shapely, 
entered  the  room,  carrying  a  tray  with  food  and 
drink  set  out  on  a  white  cloth.  Seeing  him  bowed 
over  the  piano,  she  put  the  tray  on  the  table  and 
advanced. 

"Dear  godfather,'*  she  said  gently,  her  hand  on 
his  shoulder. 

He  raised  his  head  and  smiled. 

"I  did  not  hear  you,  my  Uttle  Sonia." 

"You  have  been  composing?" 

He  sat  upright,  and  tore  the  pencilled  sheets  into 
fragments,  which  he  dropped  in  a  handful  on  the 
floor. 

"  Once,  long  ago,  I  had  a  dream.  I  lost  it.  To-day 
I  thought  that  I  had  found  it.  But  do  you  know 
what  I  did  really  find?" 

"No,  godfather,"  replied  Sonia,  stooping,  with 
housewifely  tidiness,  to  pick  up  the  htter. 

"That  I  am  a  poor  old  fool,"  said  he. 

Sonia  threw  the  paper  into  the  grate  and  again 
came  up  behind  him. 

"It  is  better  to  have  lost  a  dream  than  never  to 
have  had  one  at  all.    What  was  your  dream?" 


22  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"I  thought  I  could  write  the  Song  of  Life  as  I 
heard  it  —  as  I  hear  it  still."  He  smote  his  fore- 
head lightly.  "But  no!  God  has  not  considered 
me  worthy  to  sing  it.  I  bow  my  head  to  His  —  to 
His"  — he  sought  for  the  word  with  thin  fingers  — 
"to  His  decree." 

She  said,  with  the  indulgent  wisdom  of  youth 
speaking  to  age: 

"He  has  given  you  the  power  to  love  and  to  win 
love." 

The  old  man  swung  round  on  the  music-stool  and 
put  his  arm  round  her  waist  and  smiled  into  her 
young  face. 

"Geoffrey  is  a  very  fortunate  fellow." 

"Because  he's  a  successful  composer?" 

He  looked  at  her  and  shook  his  head,  and  Sonia, 
knowing  what  he  meant,  blushed  very  prettily. 
Then  she  laughed  and  broke  away. 

"Mother  has  had  seventeen  partridges  sent  her 
as  presents  this  week,  and  she  wants  you  to  help 
her  eat  them,  and  father's  offered  a  bargain  in  some 
good  Beaujolais.  and  won't  decide  until  you  tell 
him  what  you  tnink  of  it." 

Deftly  she  set  out  the  meal,  and  drew  a  chair  to 
the  table.    Angelo  Fardetti  rose. 

"That  I  should  love  ypu  all,"  said  he  simply, 
"is  only  human,  but  that  you  should  so  much  love 
me  is  more  than  I  can  understand." 

You  see,  he  knew  that  watchful  ears  had  missed 
his  usual  outgoing  footsteps,  and  that  watchful 
hearts  had  divined  the  reason.  To  refuse,  to  hesi- 
tate, would  be  to  reject  love.     So  there  was  no 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  23 

more  to  be  said.  He  sat  down  meekly,  and  Sonia 
ministered  to  his  wants.  As  soon  as  she  saw  that 
he  was  making  headway  with  the  partridge  and  the 
burgundy,  she  too  sat  by  the  table. 

"Godfather,"  she  said,  "I've  had  splendid  news 
this  morning." 

"Geoffrey  .5" 

"Of  course.  What  other  news  could  be  splendid.^ 
His  Symphony  in  E  flat  is  going  to  be  given  at  the 
Queen's  HaU." 

"That  is  indeed  beautiful  news,"  said  the  old 
man,  laying  down  knife  and  fork,  "but  I  did  not 
know  that  he  had  written  a  Symphony  in  E  flat." 

"That  was  why  he  went  and  buried  himself  for 
months  in  Cornwall  —  to  finish  it,"  she  explained. 

"I  knew  nothing  about  it.  Aie!  aie!"  he  sighed. 
"It  is  to  you,  and  no  longer  to  me,  that  he  teUs 
things." 

"You  silly,  jealous  old  dear!"  she  laughed.  "He 
had  to  account  for  deserting  me  all  the  summer.  But 
as  to  what  it's  all  about,  I'm  as  ignorant  as  you  are. 
I've  not  heard  a  note  of  it.  Sometimes  Geoff  is  like 
that,  you  know.  If  he's  dead  certain  sure  of  him- 
self, he  won't  have  any  criticism  or  opinions  while 
the  work's  in  progress.  It's  only  when  he's  doubt- 
ful that  he  brings  one  in.  And  the  doubtful  things 
are  never  an^^hing  like  the  certain  ones.  You  must 
have  noticed  it." 

"That  is  true,"  said  Angelo  Fardetti,  taking  up 
knife  and  fork  again.  "He  was  like  that  since  he 
was  a  boy." 

"It  is  going  to  be  given  on  Saturday  fortnight. 


24  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

He'll  conduct  himself.  They've  got  a  splendid  pro- 
gramme to  send  him  off.  Lembrich's  going  to  play, 
and  CarU's  going  to  sing  —just  for  his  sake.  Isn't 
it  gorgeous?" 

"It  is  grand.  But  what  does  Geoffrey  say  about 
it.^  Come,  come,  after  all  he  is  not  the  sphinx." 
He  drummed  his  fingers  impatiently  on  the  table. 

"Would  you  really  like  to  know.^*" 

"I  am  waiting." 

"He  says  it's  going  to  knock  'em I"  she  laughed. 

"Knock  'em?" 

"Those  were  his  words." 

"But " 

She  interpreted  into  purer  English.  Geoffrey 
was  confident  that  his  symphony  would  achieve  a 
sensational  success. 

"In  the  meanwhile,"  said  she,  "if  you  don't 
finish  your  partridge  you'll  break  mother's  heart." 

She  poured  out  a  glass  of  burgundy,  which  the 
old  man  drank;  but  he  refused  the  food. 

"No,  no,"  he  said,  "I  cannot  eat  more.  I  have 
a  lump  there  —  in  my  throat.  I  am  too  excited. 
I  feel  that  he  is  marching  to  his  great  triumph.  My 
little  Geoffrey."  He  rose,  knocking  his  chair  over, 
and  strode  about  the  confined  space.  ''Sacramento! 
But  I  am  a  wicked  old  man.  I  was  sorrowful  because 
I  was  so  dull,  so  stupid  that  I  could  not  write  a 
sonata.  I  blamed  the  good  God.  Mea  maxima 
culpa.  And  at  once  he  sends  me  a  partridge  in  a 
halo  of  love,  and  the  news  of  my  dear  son's  glory " 

Sonia  stopped  him,  her  plump  hands  on  the  front 
of  his  old  corrugated  frock-coat. 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  25 

"And  your  glory,  too,  dear  godfather.  If  it 
hadn't  been  for  you,  where  would  Geoffrey  be? 
And  who  realises  it  more  than  Geoffrey?  Would 
you  like  to  see  a  bit  of  his  letter?  Only  a  little  bit 
—  for  there's  a  lot  of  rubbish  in  it  that  I  would  be 
ashamed  of  anybody  who  thinks  well  of  him  to 
read  —  but  just  a  little  bit." 

Her  hand  was  at  the  broad  belt  joining  blouse 
and  skirt.  Angelo,  towering  above  her,  smiled  with 
an  old  man's  tenderness  at  the  laughing  love  in 
her  dark  ey^,  and  at  the  happiness  in  her  young, 
comely  face.  Her  features  were  generous,  and  her 
mouth  frankly  large,  but  her  Ups  were  fresh  and  her 
teeth  white  and  even,  and  to  the  old  fellow  she 
looked  all  that  man  could  dream  of  the  virginal 
mother-to-be  of  great  sons.  She  fished  the  letter 
from  her  belt,  scanned  and  folded  it  carefully. 

"There!     Read." 

And  Angelo  Fardetti  read: 

"I've  learned  my  theory  and  technique,  and  God 
knows  what  —  things  that  only  they  could  teach 
me  —  from  professors  with  world-famous  names. 
But  for  real  inspiration,  for  the  fount  of  music  itself, 
I  come  back  all  the  time  to  oin  dear  old  maestro, 
Angelo  Fardetti.  I  can't  for  the  life  of  me  define 
what  it  is,  but  he  opened  for  me  a  secret  chamber 
behind  whose  concealed  door  all  these  illustrious 
chaps  have  walked  unsuspectingly.  It  seems  silly 
to  say  it  because,  beyond  a  few  odds  and  ends,  the 
dear  old  man  has  composed  nothing,  but  I  am  con- 
vinced that  I  owe  the  essentials  of  everything  I  do 
in  music  to  his  teaching  and  influence." 


26  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Angelo  gave  her  back  the  folded  letter  without  a 
word,  and  turned  arid  stood  again  by  the  window, 
staring  unseeingly  at  the  prim,  semi-detached  villas 
opposite.  Sonia,  having  re-hidden  her  treasure, 
stole  up  to  him.  Feehng  her  near,  he  stretched  out 
a  hand  and  laid  it  on  her  head. 

"God  is  very  wonderful,"  said  he  —  "very  mys- 
terious.   Oh,  and  so  good!" 

He  fumbled,  absently  and  foolishly,  with  her 
well-ordered  hair,  saying  nothing  more.  After  a 
while  she  freed  herself  gently  and  led  him  back  to 
his  partridge. 

A  day  or  two  afterwards  Geoflfrey  came  to  Peck- 
ham,  and  mounted  with  Sonia  to  Fardetti's  rooms, 
where  the  old  man  embraced  him  tenderly,  and  ex- 
pressed his  joy  in  the  exuberant  foreign  way.  Geof- 
frey received  the  welcome  with  an  Englishman's 
laughing  embarrassment.  Perhaps  the  only  fault 
that  Angelo  Fardetti  could  find  in  the  beloved 
pupil  was  his  uncompromising  English  manner  and 
appearance.  His  well-set  figure  and  crisp,  short 
fair  hair  and  fair  moustache  did  not  sufficiently 
express  him  as  a  great  musician.  Angelo  had  to 
content  himself  with  the  lad's  eyes  —  musician's 
eyes,  as  he  said,  very  bright,  arresting,  dark  blue, 
with  depths  like  sapphires,  in  which  lay  strange 
thoughts  and  human  laughter. 

"I've  only  run  in,  dear  old  maestro,  to  pass  the 
time  of  day  with  you,  and  to  give  you  a  ticket  for 
my  Queen's  Hall  show.    You'll  come,  won't  you.^" 

"He  asks  if  I  will  come!  I  would  get  out  of  my 
coflfin  and  walk  through  the  streets!" 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  27 

"I  think  you'll* be  pleased,"  said  Geoffrey.  "I've 
been  goodness  knows  how  long  over  it,  and  I've 
put  into  it  all  I  know.  If  it  doesn't  come  off,  I'll " 

He  paused. 

"You  will  conunit  no  rashness,"  cried  the  old 
man  in  alarm. 

"I  wiU.     I'll  inarry  Sonia  the  very  next  day!" 

There  was  laughing  talk,  and  the  three  spent  a 
happy  Httle  quarter  of  an  hour.  But  Geoffrey  went 
away  without  giving  either  of  the  others  an  inkling 
of  the  nature  of  his  famous  symphony.  It  was 
Geoffrey's  way. 

The  fateful  afternoon  arrived.  Angelo  Fardetti, 
sitting  in  the  stalls  of  the  Queen's  Hall  with  Sonia 
and  her  parents,  looked  round  the  great  auditorium, 
and  thrilled  with  pleasure  at  seeing  it  full.  London 
had  thronged  to  hear  the  first  performance  of  his 
beloved's  symphony.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  London 
had  also  come  to  hear  the  wonderful  orchestra  give 
Tchaikowsky's  Fourth  Symphony,  and  to  hear 
Lembrich  play  the  violin  and  CarU  sing,  which  they 
did  once  in  a  blue  moon  at  a  symphony  concert- 
But  in  the  old  man's  eyes  these  ineffectual  fires 
paled  before  Geoffrey's  genius.  So  great  was  his 
suspense  and  agitation  that  he  could  pay  but  scant 
attention  to  the  first  two  items  on  the  programme. 
It  seemed  almost  like  unmeaning  music,  far  away. 

During  the  interveJ  before  the  Symphony  in  E 
flat  his  thin  hand  found  Soma's,  and  held  it  tight, 
and  she  returned  the  pressure.  She,  too,  was  sick 
with  anxiety.  The  great  orchestra,  tier  upon  tier, 
was  a-flutter  with  the  performers  scrambling  into 


28  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

their  places,  and  with  leaves  of  scores  being  turned 
over,  and  with  a  myriad  moving  bows.  Then  all 
having  settled  into  the  order  of  a  vast  machine, 
Geoffrey  appeared  at  the  conductor's  stand.  Com- 
forting applause  greeted  him.  Was  he  not  the  ris- 
ing hope  of  English  music?  Many  others  beside 
those  four  to  whom  he  was  dear,  and  the  mother 
and  father  who  sat  a  httle  way  in  front  of  them, 
felt  the  same  nervous  apprehension.  The  future  of 
English  music  was  at  stake.  Would  it  be  yet  one 
more  disappointment  and  disillusion,  or  would  it 
rank  the  young  English  composer  with  the  im- 
mortals? Geoffrey  bowed  smilingly  at  the  audience, 
turned  and  with  his  baton  gave  the  signal  to  begin. 

Although  only  a  few  years  have  passed  since  that 
memorable  first  performance,  the  modestly  named 
Symphony  in  E  flat  is  now  famous  and  Geoffrey 
Chase  is  a  great  man  the  wide  world  over.  To  every 
lover  of  music  the  symphony  is  famihar.  But  only 
those  who  were  present  at  the  Queen's  Hall  on  that 
late  October  afternoon  can  realise  the  wild  rapture 
of  enthusiasm  with  which  the  symphony  was  greeted. 
It  answered  all  longings,  solved  all  mysteries.  It 
interpreted,  for  all  who  had  ears  to  hear,  the  fairy 
dew  of  love,  the  burning  depths  of  passion,  sorrow  and 
death,  and  the  eternal  Triumph  of  Life.  Intensely 
modern  and  faultless  in  technique,  it  was  new,  im- 
expected,  individual,  unrelated  to  any  school. 

The  scene  was  one  of  raging  tmnult;  but  there 
was  one  hmnan  being  who  did  not  applaud,  and 
that  was  the  old  musician,  forgotten  of  the  world, 
Angelo  Fardetti.    He  had  fainted. 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  29 

All  through  the  piece  he  had  sat,  bolt  upright, 
his  nerves  strung  to  breaking-point,  his  dark  cheeks 
growing  greyer  and  greyer,  and  the  stare  in  his 
eyes  growing  more  and  more  strange,  and  the  grip 
on  the  girl's  hand  growing  more  and  more  vice-like, 
until  she,  for  sheer  agony,  had  to  free  herself.  And 
none  concerned  themselves  about  him;  not  even 
Sonia,  for  she  was  enwrapped  in  the  soul  of  her 
lover's  music.  And  even  between  the  movements 
her  heart  was  too  full  for  speech  or  thought,  and 
when  she  looked  at  the  old  man,  she  saw  him  smile 
wanly  and  nod  his  head  as  one  who,  like  herself, 
was  speechless  with  emotion.  At  the  end  the  storm 
burst.  She  rose  with  the  shouting,  clapping,  hand- 
and  handkerchief-waving  house,  and  suddenly,  miss- 
ing him  from  her  side,  glanced  round  and  saw  him 
huddled  up  unconscious  in  his  stall. 

The  noise  and  movement  were  so  great  that  few 
noticed  the  long  lean  old  figure  being  carried  out 
of  the  hall  by  one  of  the  side  doors  fortunately  near. 
In  the  vestibule,  attended  by  the  good  Anton  and 
his  wife  and  Sonia,  and  a  commissionaire,  he  re- 
covered. When  he  could  speak,  he  looked  round 
and  said: 

"  I  am  a  silly  old  fellow.  I  am  sorry  I  have  spoiled 
your  happiness.  I  think  I  must  be  too  old  for  happi- 
ness, for  this  is  how  it  has  treated  me." 

There  was  much  discussion  between  his  friends 
as  to  what  should  be  done,  but  good  Mrs.  Kirilov, 
once  girhshly  plimip,  when  Angelo  had  first  known 
her,  now  florid  and  fat  and  motherly,  had  her  way, 
and,  leaving  Anton  and  Sonia  to  see  the  hero  of  the 


30  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

afternoon,  if  they  could,  drove  off  in  a  cab  to  Peck- 
ham  with  the  over-wrought  old  man  and  put  him 
to  bed  and  gave  him  homely  remedies,  invahd  food 
and  drink,  and  commanded  him  to  sleep  till  morn- 
ing. 

But  Angelo  Fardetti  disobeyed  her.  For  Sonia, 
although  she  had  found  him  meekly  between  the 
sheets  when  she  went  up  to  see  him  that  evening, 
heard  him  later,  as  she  was  going  to  bed  —  his 
sitting-room  was  inunediately  above  her  —  playing 
over,  on  muted  strings,  various  themes  of  Geoffrey's 
symphony.  At  last  she  went  up  to  his  room  and  put 
her  head  in  at  the  door,  and  saw  him,  a  lank,  dilapi- 
dated figure  in  an  old,  old  dressing-gown,  fiddle 
and  bow  in  hand. 

"Oh!  oh!"  she  rated.  "You  are  a  naughty, 
naughty  old  dear.    Go  to  bed  at  once." 

He  smiled  like  a  guilty  but  spoiled  child.  "I  will 
go,"  said  he. 

In  the  morning  she  herself  took  up  his  simple 
breakfast  and  all  the  newspapers  folded  at  the  page 
on  which  the  notices  of  the  concert  were  printed. 
The  Press  was  unanimous  in  acclamation  of  the 
great  genius  that  had  raised  English  music  to  the 
spheres.  She  sat  at  the  foot  of  the  bed  and  read  to 
him  while  he  sipped  his  coffee  and  munched  his  roll, 
and,  absorbed  in  her  own  tremendous  happiness, 
was  content  to  feel  the  glow  of  the  old  man's  sym- 
pathy. There  was  little  to  be  said  save  exclamatory 
paeans,  so  overwhelming  was  the  triumph.  Tears 
streamed  down  his  lined  cheeks,  and  between  the 
tears  there  shone  the  light  of  a  strange  gladness  in 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  31 

his  eyes.  Presently  Sonia  left  him  and  went  about 
her  household  duties.  An  hour  or  so  afterwards 
she  caught  the  sound  of  his  piano;  again  he  was 
recalling  bits  of  the  great  symphony,  and  she  mar- 
velled at  his  musical  memory.  Then  about  half- 
past  eleven  she  saw  him  leave  the  house  and  stride 
away,  his  head  in  the  air,  his  bent  shoulders  curiously 
erect. 

Soon  came  the  clatter  of  a  cab  stopping  at  the 
front  door,  and  Geoffrey  Chase,  for  whom  she  had 
been  watching  from  her  window,  leaped  out  upon 
the  pavement.  She  ran  down  and  admitted  him. 
He  caught  her  in  his  arms  and  they  stood  clinging 
in  a  long  embrace. 

"It's  too  wonderful  to  talk  about,"  she  whispered. 

"Then  don't  let  us  talk  about  it,"  he  laughed. 

"As  if  we  could  help  it!  I  can  think  of  nothing 
else." 

"I  can  —  you,"  said  he,  and  kissed  her  again. 

Now,  in  spite  of  the  spaciousness  of  the  house  in 
Formosa  Terrace,  it  had  only  two  reception-rooms, 
as  the  house-agents  grandiloquently  term  them,  and 
these,  dining-room  and  drawing-room,  were  respec- 
tively occupied  by  Anton  and  Mrs.  Kirilov  engaged 
in  their  morning  lessons.  The  passage  where  the 
young  people  stood  was  no  fit  place  for  lovers' 
meetings. 

"Let  us  go  up  to  the  maestro' s.  He's  out,"  said 
Sonia. 

They  did  as  they  had  often  done  in  like  circum- 
stances. Indeed,  the  old  man,  before  now,  had 
given  up  his  sitting-room  to  them,  feigning  an  un- 


32  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

conquerable  desire  to  walk  abroad.  Were  they  not 
his  children,  dearer  to  him  than  anyone  else  in  the 
world?  So  it  was  natural  that  they  should  make 
themselves  at  home  in  his  tiny  den.  They  sat  and 
talked  of  the  great  victory,  of  the  playing  of  the 
orchestra,  of  passages  that  he  might  take  slower  or 
quicker  next  time,  of  the  ovation,  of  the  mountain 
of  congratulatory  telegrams  and  letters  that  blocked 
up  his  rooms.  They  talked  of  Angelo  Fardetti  and 
his  deep  emotion  and  his  pride.  And  they  talked 
of  the  future,  of  their  marriage  which  was  to  take 
place  very  soon.    She  suggested  postponement. 

"I  want  you  to  be  quite  sure.  This  must  make 
a  difference." 

"Difference!"  he  cried  indignantly. 

She  waved  him  off  and  sat  on  the  music-stool  by 
the  piano. 

"I  must  speak  sensibly.  You  are  one  of  the 
great  ones  of  the  musical  world,  one  of  the  great 
ones  of  the  world  itself.  You  will  go  on  and  on. 
You  will  have  all  sorts  of  honours  heaped  on  you. 
You  will  go  about  among  lords  and  ladies,  what  is 
called  Society  —  oh,  I  know,  you'll  not  be  able  to 
help  it.  And  all  the  time  I  remain  what  I  am,  just 
a  poor  little  common  girl,  a  member  of  a  twopenny- 
halfpenny  ladies'  band.  I'd  rather  you  regretted 
having  taken  up  with  me  before  than  after.  So  we 
ought  to  put  it  off." 

He  answered  her  as  a  good  man  who  loves  deeply 
can  only  answer.  Her  heart  was  convinced;  but 
she  turned  her  head  aside  and  thought  of  further 
argument.    Her  eye  fell  on  some  music  open  on  the 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  33 

rest,  and  mechanically,  with  a  musician's  instinct, 
she  fingered  a  few  bars.  The  strange  famiharity  of 
the  theme  startled  her  out  of  preoccupation.  She 
continued  the  treble,  and  suddenly  with  a  cold 
shiver  of  wonder,  crashed  down  both  hands  and 
played  on. 

Geoffrey  strode  up  to  her. 

"What's  that  you're  playing?" 

She  pointed  hastily  to  the  score.  He  bent  over 
and  stared  at  the  faded  manuscript. 

"Why,  good  Godl"  he  cried,  "it's  my  symphony." 

She  stopped,  swimg  round  and  faced  him  with 
fear  in  her  eyes. 

"Yes.    It's  your  symphony." 

He  took  the  thick  manuscript  from  the  rest  and 
looked  at  the  brown-paper  cover.    On  it  was  written: 

"The  Song  of  Life.  A  Sonata  by  Angelo  Fardetti. 
September,  1878." 

There  was  an  amazed  silence.  Then,  in  a  queer 
accusing  voice,  Sonia  cried  out: 

"Geoffrey,  what  have  you  done.^^" 

"Heaven  knows;  but  I've  never  known  of  this 
before.  My  God!  Open  the  thing  somewhere  else 
and  see." 

So  Sonia  opened  the  manuscript  at  random  and 
played,  and  again  it  was  an  echo  of  Geoffrey's  sym- 
phony. He  sank  on  a  chair  like  a  man  crushed  by 
an  overwhelming  fatality,  and  held  his  head  in  his 
hands. 

"I  oughtn't  to  have  done  it,"  he  groaned.  "But 
it  was  more  than  me.  The  thing  overmastered  me, 
it  haunted  me  so  that  I  couldn't  sleep,  and  the  more 


34  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

it  haunted  me  the  more  it  became  my  own,  my  very 
own.    It  was  too  big  to  lose." 
Sonia  held  him  with  scared  eyes. 
"What  are  you  talking  of?"  she  asked. 

"The  way  I  came  to  write  the  Symphony.  It's 
like  a  nightmare."  He  rose.  "A  couple  of  years 
ago,"  said  he,  "  I  bought  a  bundle  of  old  music  at 
a  second-hand  shop.  It  contained  a  collection  of 
eighteenth-century  stuff  which  I  wanted.  I  took 
the  whole  lot,  and  on  going  through  it,  found  a  clump 
of  old,  discoloured  manuscript  partly  in  faded  brown 
ink,  partly  in  pencil.  It  was  mostly  rough  notes. 
I  tried  it  out  of  curiosity.  The  composition  was 
feeble  and  the  orchestration  childish  — I  thought 
it  the  work  of  some  dead  and  forgotten  amateur  — 
but  it  was  crammed  full  of  ideas,  crammed  full  of 
beauty.  I  began  tinkering  it  about,  to  amuse  my- 
self. The  more  I  worked  on  it  the  more  it  fascinated 
me.  It  became  an  obsession.  Then  I  pitched  the 
old  score  away  and  started  it  on  my  own." 

"The  maestro  sold  a  lot  of  old  music  about  that 
time,"  said  Sonia. 

The  young  man  threw  up  his  hands.  "It's  a 
fatality,  an  awful  fatality.  My  God,"  he  cried, 
"to  think  that  I  of  all  men  should  have  stolen 
Angelo  Fardetti's  music!" 

"No  wonder  he  fainted  yesterday,"  said  Sonia. 

It  was  catastrophe.  Both  regarded  it  in  remorse- 
ful silence.    Sonia  said  at  last: 

"You'll  have  to  explain." 

"Of  course,  of  course.  But  what  must  the  dear 
old  fellow  be  thinking  of  me.^    What  else  but  that 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  35 

I've  got  hold  of  this  surreptitiously,  while  he  was 
out  of  the  room?  What  else  but  that  I'm  a  mean 
thief?" 

"He  loves  you,  dear,  enough  to  forgive  you  any- 
thing." 

"It's  tKe  Unforgivable  Sin.  I'm  wiped  out.  I 
cease  to  exist  as  an  honest  man.  But  I  had  no 
idea,"  he  cried,  with  the  instinct  of  self-defence, 
"  that  I  had  come  so  near  him.  I  thought  I  had  just 
got  a  theme  here  and  there.  I  thought  I  had  recast 
all  the  odds  and  ends  according  to  my  own  scheme." 
He  ran  his  eye  over  a  page  or  two  of  the  score. 
"Yes,  this  is  practically  the  same  as  the  old  rough 
notes.  But  there  was  a  lot,  of  course,  I  couldn't  use. 
Look  at  that,  for  instance."    He  indicated  a  passage. 

"I  can't  read  it  like  you,"  said  Sonia.  "I  must 
play  it." 

She  turned  again  to  the  piano,  and  played  the 
thin,  uninspired  music  that  had  no  relation  to  the 
Symphony  in  E  flat,  and  her  eyes  filled  with  tears 
as  she  remembered  poignantly  what  the  old  man 
had  told  her  of  his  Song  of  Life.  She  went  on  and 
on  until  the  music  quickened  into  one  of  the  familiar 
themes;  and  the  tears  fell,  for  she  knew  how  poorly 
it  was  treated. 

And  then  the  door  burst  open.  Sonia  stopped  dead 
in  the  middle  of  a  bar,  and  they  both  turned  round 
to  find  Angelo  Fardetti  standing  on  the  threshold. 

"Ah,  no!"  he  cried,  waving  his  thin  hands.  "Put 
that  away.  I  did  not  know  I  had  left  it  out.  You 
must  not  play  that.    Ah,  my  son!  my  son!" 

He  rushed  forward  and  clasped  Geoffrey  in  his 


36  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

arms,  and  kissed  him  on  the  cheeks,  and  murmured 
foolish,  broken  words. 

"You  have  seen  it.  You  have  seen  the  miracle. 
The  miracle  of  the  good  God.  Oh,  I  am  happy! 
My  son,  my  son!  I  am  the  happiest  of  old  men. 
Ah!"  He  shook  him  tremulously  by  both  shoulders, 
and  looked  at  him  with  a  magical  Ught  in  his  old 
eyes.  "You  are  really  what  our  dear  Anton  calls 
a  prodigy.  I  have  thought  and  you  have  executed. 
Santa  Maria!"  "he  cried,  raising  hands  and  eyes  to 
heaven.  "I  thank  you  for  this  miracle  that  has 
been  done!" 

He  turned  away.  Geoffrey,  in  blank  bewilder- 
ment, made  a  step  forward. 

''Maestro,  I  never  knew " 

But  Sonia,  knowledge  dawning  in  her  face, 
clapped  her  hand  over  his  mouth  —  and  he  read 
her  conjecture  in  her  eyes,  and  drew  a  great  breath. 
The  old  man  came  again  and  laughed  and  cried  and 
wrung  his  hand,  and  poured  out  his  joy  and  wonder 
into  the  amazed  ears  of  the  conscience-stricken 
yoimg  musician.  The  floodgates  of  speech  were 
loosened. 

"You  see  what  you  have  done,  figlio  mio.  You 
see  the  miracle.  This  —  this  poor  rubbish  is  of 
me,  Angelo  Fardetti.  On  it  I  spent  my  life,  my 
blood,  my  tears,  and  it  is  a  thing  of  nothing,  nothing. 
It  is  wind  and  noise;  but  by  the  miracle  of  God  I 
breathed  it  into  your  spirit  and  it  grew  —  and  it 
grew  into  all  that  I  dreamed  —  all  that  I  dreamed 
and  could  not  express.  It  is  my  Song  of  Life  sung 
as  I  coxild  have  sung  it  if  I  had  been  a  great  genius 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  37 

like  you.  And  you  have  taken  my  song  from  my 
soul,  from  my  heart,  and  all  the  sublime  harmonies 
that  could  get  no  farther  than  this  dull  head  you 
have  put  down  in  immortal  music." 

He  went  on  exalted,  and  Sonia  and  Geoffrey  stood 
pale  and  silent.    To  imdeceive  him  was  impossible. 

"You  see  it  is  a  miracle?"  he  asked. 

"Yes,"  replied  Geoffrey  in  a  low  voice. 

"  You  never  saw  this  before.  Ha !  ha  I "  he  laughed 
dehghtedly.  "Not  a  human  soul  has  seen  it  or 
heard  it.  I  kept  it  locked  up  there,  in  my  Kttle 
strong-box.  And  it  was  there  all  the  time  I  was 
teaching  you.    And  you  never  suspected." 

"No,  maestro,  I  did  not,"  said  the  young  man 
truthfully. 

"Now,  when  did  you  begin  to  think  of  it?  How 
did  it  come  to  you  —  my  Song  of  Life?  Did  it  sing 
in  your  brain  while  you  were  here  and  my  brain  was 
guiding  yours,  and  then  gather  form  and  shape  all 
through  the  long  years?" 

"Yes,"  said  Geoffrey.  "That  was  how  it  came 
about." 

Angelo  took  Sonia's  plump  cheeks  between  his 
hands  and  smiled.  "Now  you  understand,  my  httle 
Sonia,  why  I  was  so  foolish  yesterday.  It  was  emo- 
tion, such  emotion  as  a  man  has  never  felt  before  in 
the  world.  And  now  you  know  why  I  could  not  speak 
this  morning.  I  thought  of  the  letter  you  showed  me. 
He  confessed  that  old  Angelo  Fardetti  had  inspired 
him,  but  he  did  not  know  how.  I  know.  The  Httle 
spark  flew  from  the  soul  of  Angelo  Fardetti  into  his 
soul,  and  it  became  a  Divine  Fire.    And  my  Song  of 


38  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Life  is  true.  The  symphony  was  bom  in  me  —  it 
died  in  me  —  it  is  re-bom  so  gloriously  in  him.  The 
seed  is  imperishable.    It  is  eternal." 

He  broke  away,  laughing  through  a  Uttle  sob,  and 
stood  by  the  window,  once  more  gazing  unseeingly 
at  the  opposite  villas  of  Foraiosa  Terrace.  Geoffrey 
went  up  to  him  and  fell  on  his  knees  —  it  was  a  most 
un-English  thing  to  do  —  and  took  the  old  hand 
very  reverently. 

'"'Padre  mio,''  said  he. 

"Yes,  it  is  true.  I  am  your  father,"  said  the  old 
man  in  Italian,  "and  we  are  bound  together  by 
more  than  human  ties."  He  laid  his  hand  on  the 
yoimg  man's  head.  "May  all  the  blessings  of  God 
be  upon  you." 

Geoffrey  rose,  the  humblest  man  in  England. 
Angelo  passed  his  hand  across  his  forehead,  but  his 
face  bore  a  beautiful  smile. 

"I  feel  so  happy,"  said  he.  "So  happy  that  it  is 
terrible.  And  I  feel  so  strange.  And  my  heart  is 
full.  If  you  will  forgive  me,  I  will  He  down  for  a 
little."  He  sank  on  the  horse-hair  sofa  and  smiled 
up  in  the  face  of  the  young  man.  "And  my  head 
is  full  of  the  andante  movement  that  I  could  never 
write,  and  you  have  made  it  like  the  harmonies 
before  the  Throne  of  God.  Sit  down  at  the  piano 
and  play  it  for  me,  my  son." 

So  Geoffrey  took  his  seat  at  the  piano,  and  played, 
and  as  he  played,  he  lost  himseff  in  his  music.  And 
Sonia  crept  near  and  stood  by  him  in  a  dream  while 
the  wonderful  story  of  the  passing  of  human  things 
was  told.    When  the  sound  of  the  last  chords  had 


THE  SONG  OF  LIFE  39 

died  away  she  put  her  arms  round  Geoffrey's  neck 
and  laid  her  cheek  against  his.  For  a  while  time 
stood  still.  Then  they  turned  and  saw  the  old  man 
sleeping  peacefully.  She  whispered  a  word,  he  rose, 
and  they  began  to  tiptoe  out  of  the  room.  But 
suddenly  instinct  caused  Sonia  to  turn  her  head 
again.  She  stopped  and  gripped  Geoffrey's  hand. 
She  caught  a  choking  breath. 

"Is  he  asleep?" 

They  went  back  and  bent  over  him.  He  was 
dead. 

Angelo  Fardetti  had  died  of  a  happiness  too  great 
for  mortal  man.  For  to  which  one  of  us  in  a  hun- 
dred miUion  is  it  given  to  behold  the  utter  realisa- 
tion of  his  life's  dream.^ 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER 


AS  soon  as  the  sun  rose  out  of  the  sea  its  light 
streamed  through  a  white-curtained  case- 
ment window  into  the  whitest  and  most 
spotless  room  you  can  imagine.  It  shone  upon  two 
little  white  beds,  separated  by  the  width  of  the  floor 
covered  with  straw-coloured  matting;  on  white 
garments  neatly  folded  which  lay  on  white  chairs 
by  the  side  of  each  bed;  on  a  white  enamelled  bed- 
room suite;  on  the  one  picture  (over  the  mantel- 
piece) which  adortied  the  white  walls,  the  enlarged 
photograph  of  a  white-whiskered,  elderly  gentleman 
in  naval  uniform;  and  on  the  white,  placid  faces  of 
the  sleepers. 

It  awakened  Miss  Ursula  Widdington,  who  sat 
up  in  bed,  greeted  it  with  a  smile,  and  forthwith 
aroused  her  sister. 

"Janet,  here's  the  sun." 

Miss  Widdington  awoke  and  smiled  too. 

Now  to  awake  at  daybreak  with  a  snule  and  a 
childlike  dehght  at  the  sun  when  you  are  over  forty- 
five  is  a  sign  of  an  unruffled  conscience  and  a  sweet 
disposition. 

43 


44  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"The  first  glimpse  of  it  for  a  week,"  said  Miss 
Widdington. 

"Isn't  it  strange,"  said  Miss  Ursula,  "that  when 
we  went  to  sleep  the  storm  was  still  raging?" 

"And  now  —  the  sea  hasn't  gone  down  yet. 
Listen." 

"The  tide's  coming  in.  Let  us  go  out  and  look 
at  it,"  cried  Miss  Ursula,  delicately  getting  out  of 
bed. 

"You're  so  impulsive,  Ursula,"  said  Miss  Widding- 
ton. 

She  was  forty-eight,  and  three  years  older  than 
her  sister.  She  could,  therefore,  smile  indulgently 
at  the  impetuosity  of  youth.  But  she  rose  and 
dressed,  and  presently  the  two  ladies  stole  out  of 
the  silent  house. 

They  had  lived  there  for  many  years,  perched  away 
on  top  of  a  projecting  cliff  on  the  Cornish  coast, 
midway  between  sea  and  sky,  like  two  fairy  princesses 
in  an  enchanted  bit  of  the  world's  end,  who  had 
grown  grey  with  waiting  for  the  prince  who  never 
came.  Theirs  was  the  only  house  on  the  wind- 
swept height.  Below  in  the  bay  on  the  right  of 
their  small  headland  nestled  the  tiny  fishing  village 
of  Trevannic;  below,  sheer  down  to  the  left,  lay 
a  little  sandy  cove,  accessible  farther  on  by  a  nar- 
row gorge  that  spht  the  majestic  stretch  of  bastioned 
cliffs.  To  that  little  stone  weatherbeaten  house 
their  father,  the  white-whiskered  gentleman  of  the 
portrait,  had  brought  them  quite  young  when  he 
had  retired  from  the  navy  with  a  pension  and  a 
grievance  —  an  ungrateful  country  had  not  made 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  45 

Viim  an  admiral  —  and  there,  after  his  death,  they 
had  continued  to  lead  their  remote  and  gentle  lives, 
mitouched  by  the  happenings  of  the  great  world. 

The  salt-laden  wind  buffeted  them,  dashed  strands 
of  hair  stingingly  across  their  faces  and  swirled  their 
skirts  around  them  as  they  leaned  over  the  stout 
stone  parapet  their  father  had  built  along  the  edge 
of  the  cliff,  and  drank  in  the  beauty  of  the  morning. 
The  eastern  sky  was  clear  of  clouds  and  the  eastern 
sea  tossed  a  fierce  silver  under  the  sun  and  gradually 
deepened  into  frosted  green,  which  changed  in  the 
west  into  the  deep  ocean  blue;  and  the  Atlantic 
heaved  ^oid  sobbed  after  its  turmoil  of  the  day  be- 
fore. Miss  Ursula  pointed  to  the  gilt-edged  clouds 
in  the  west  and  likened  them  to  angels'  thrones, 
which  was  a  pretty  conceit.  Miss  Widdington  de- 
rived a  suggestion  of  Pentecostal  flames  from  the 
golden  flashes  of  the  sea-gulls'  wings.  Then  she 
referred  to  the  appetite  they  would  have  for  break- 
fast. To  this  last  observation  Miss  Ursula  did  not 
reply,  as  she  was  leaning  over  the  parapet  intent 
on  something  in  the  cove  below.  Presently  she 
clutched  her  sister's  arm. 

"Janet,  look  down  there  —  that  black  thing  — 
what  is  it?" 

Miss  Widdington's  gaze  followed  the  pointing 
finger. 

At  the  foot  of  the  rocks  that  edged  the  gorge 
sprawled  a  thing  checkered  black  and  white. 

"I  do  believe  it's  a  manl" 

"A  dirowned  manl  Oh,  poor  fellow  1  Oh,  Janet, 
how  dreadful  1" 


46  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

She  turned  brown,  compassionate  eyes  on  her 
sister,  who  continued  to  peer  keenly  at  the  helpless 
figure  below. 

"Do  you  think  he's  dead,  Janet?" 

"The  sensible  thing  would  be  to  go  down  and  see," 
replied  Miss  Widdington. 

It  was  by  no  means  the  first  dead  man  cast  up  by 
the  waves  that  they  had  stumbled  upon  during  their 
long  sojourn  on  this  wild  coast,  where  wrecks  and 
foimderings  and  loss  of  men's  fives  at  sea  were  com- 
monplace happenings.  They  were  dealing  with  the 
sadly  familiar;  and  though  their  gentle  hearts 
throbbed  hard  as  they  made  for  the  gorge  and  sped 
quickly  down  the  ragged,  rocky  path,  they  set 
about  their  task  as  a  matter  of  course. 

Miss  Ursula  reached  the  sand  first,  and  walked 
over  to  the  body  which  lay  on  a  low  shelf  of  rock. 
Then  she  turned  with  a  glad  cry. 

"Janet.  He's  alive.  He's  moaning.  Come 
quickly."  And,  as  Janet  joined  her:  "Did  you 
ever  see  such  a  beautiful  face  in  your  life?" 

"We  should  have  brought  some  brandy,"  said 
Miss  Widdington. 

But,  as  she  bent  over  the  unconscious  form,  a 
foolish  moisture  gathered  in  her  eyes  which  had 
nothing  to  do  with  forgetfulness  of  alcohol.  For 
indeed  there  lay  sprawling  anyhow  in  catlike  grace 
beneath  them  the  most  romantic  figure  of  a  youth 
that  the  sight  of  maiden  ladies  ever  rested  on.  He 
had  long  black  hair,  a  perfectly  chiseUed  face,  a 
preposterously  feminine  mouth  which,  partly  open, 
showed  white  young  teeth,  and  the  most  deficate, 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  47 

long-fingered  hands  in  the  world.  Miss  Ursula 
murmured  that  he  was  hke  a  young  Greek  god. 
Miss  Widdington  sighed.  The  fellow  was  ridicu- 
lous. He  was  also  dank  with  sea  water,  and  moaned 
as  if  he  were  in  pain.  But  as  gazing  wrapt  in  wonder 
and  admiration  at  young  Greek  gods  is  not  much 
good  to  them  when  they  are  half-drowned,  Miss 
Widdington  despatched  her  sister  in  search  of  help. 

"  The  tide  is  still  low  enough  for  you  to  get  round 
the  cliff  to  the  village.  Mrs.  Pendered  will  give  you 
some  brandy,  and  her  husband  and  Luke  will  bring 
a  stretcher.  You  might  also  send  Joe  Gullow  on 
his  bicycle  for  Dr.  Mead." 

Miss  Widdington,  as  behoved  one  who  has  the 
charge  of  an  orphaned  younger  sister,  did  not  allow 
the  sentimental  to  weaken  the  practical.  Miss 
Ursula,  though  she  would  have  preferred  to  stay 
by  the  side  of  the  beautiful  youth,  was  docile,  and 
went  forthwith  on  her  errand.  Miss  Widdington, 
left  alone  with  him,  roUed  up  her  jacket  and  pil- 
lowed his  head  on  it,  brought  his  linabs  into  an  at- 
titude suggestive  of  comfort,  and  tried  by  chafing 
to  restore  him  to  animation.  Being  unsuccessful  in 
this,  she  at  last  desisted,  and  sat  on  the  rocks  near 
by  and  wondered  who  on  earth  he  was  and  where  in 
the  world  he  came  from.  His  garments  consisted 
in  a  nondescript  pair  of  trousers  and  a  .flannel  shirt 
with  a  collar,  which  was  fastened  at  the  neck,  not 
by  button  or  stud,  but  by  a  tasselled  cord;  and  he 
was  barefoot.  Miss  Widdington  glanced  modestly 
at  his  feet,  which  were  shapely;  and  the  soles  were 
soft  and  pink  like  the  palms  of  his  hands.    Now, 


48  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

had  he  been  the  coarsest  and  most  callosity-stricken 
shell-back  half-alive,  Janet  Widdington  would  have 
tended  him  with  the  same  devotion;  but  the  linger- 
ing though  unoffending  Eve  in  her  rejoiced  that  hands 
and  feet  betokened  gentler  avocations  than  that  of 
sailor  or  fisherman.  And  why?  Heaven  knows, 
save  that  the  stranded  creature  had  a  pretty  face 
and  that  his  long  black  hair  was  flung  over  his  fore- 
head in  a  most  interesting  manner.  She  wished 
he  would  open  his  eyes.  But  as  he  kept  them  shut 
and  gave  no  sign  of  returning  consciousness,  she 
sat  there  waiting  patiently;  in  front  of  her  the  rough, 
sun-kissed  Atlantic,  at  her  feet  the  semicircular 
patch  of  golden  sand,  behind  her  the  sheer  white 
cliffs,  and  by  her  side  on  the  slab  of  rock  this  good- 
looking  piece  of  jetsam. 

At  length  Miss  Ursula  appeared  roimd  the  comer 
of  the  headland,  followed  by  Jan  Pendered  and  his 
son  Luke  carrying  a  stretcher.  While  Miss  Wid- 
dington administered  brandy  without  any  obvious 
result,  the  men  looked  at  the  castaway,  scratched 
their  heads,  and  guessed  him  to  be  a  foreigner; 
but  how  he  managed  to  be  there  alone  with  never  a 
bit  of  wreckage  to  supply  a  clue  surpassed  their 
powers  of  imagination.  In  hfting  him  the  right 
foot  hung  down  through  the  trouser-leg,  and  his 
ankle  was  seen  to  be  horribly  black  and  swollen. 
Old  Jan  examined  it  carefully. 

"Broken,"  said  he. 

"Oh,  poor  boy,  that's  why  he's  moaning  so," 
cried  the  compassionate  Miss  Ursula. 

The  men  grasped  the  handles  of  the  stretcher. 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  49 

"I'd  better  take  him  home  to  my  old  woman," 
said  Jan  Tendered  thoughtfully. 

"He  can  have  my  bed,  father,"  said  Luke. 

Miss  Widdington  looked  at  Miss  Ursula  and  Miss 
Ursula  looked  at  Miss  Widdington,  and  the  eyes  of 
each  lady  were  wistful.  Then  Miss  Widdington 
spoke. 

"You  can  carry  him  up  to  the  house,  Pendered. 
We  have  a  comfortable  spare  room,  and  Dorcas 
wiU  help  us  to  look  after  him." 

The  men  obeyed,  for  in  Trevannic  Miss  Widding- 
ton's  gentle  word  was  law. 


n 

It  was  early  afternoon.  Miss  Widdington  had 
retired  to  take  her  customary  after-luncheon  siesta, 
an  indulgence  permitted  to  her  seniority,  but  not 
granted,  except  on  rare  occasions,  to  the  young. 
Miss  Ursula,  therefore,  kept  watch  in  the  sick 
chamber,  just  such  a  little  white  spotless  room  as 
their  own,  but  containing  only  one  little  white  bed 
in  which  the  youth  lay  dry  and  warm  and  com- 
fortably asleep.  He  was  exhausted  from  cold  and 
exposm-e,  said  the  doctor  who  had  driven  in  from 
St.  Madoc,  eight  miles  off,  and  his  ankle  was  broken. 
The  doctor  had  done  what  was  necessary,  had 
swathed  him  in  one  of  old  Dorcas's  flannel  night- 
gowns, and  had  departed.  Miss  Ursula  had  the 
patient  all  to  herself.  A  bright  Ifire  burned  in  the 
grate,  and  the  strong  Atlantic  breeze  came  in  through 
the  open  window  where  she  sat,  her  knitting  in  her 


50  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

hand.  Now  and  then  she  glanced  at  the  sleeper, 
longing,  in  a  most  feminine  manner,  for  him  to  awake 
and  render  an  accomit  of  himself.  Miss  Ursula's 
heart  fluttered  mildly.  For  beautiful  youths,  baf- 
fling ciu'iosity,  are  not  washed  up  aUve  by  the  sea 
at  an  old  maid's  feet  every  day  in  the  week.  It 
was  indeed  an  adventure,  a  bit  of  a  fairy  tale  sud- 
denly gleaming  and  dancing  in  the  grey  atmosphere 
of  an  eventless  life.  She  glanced  at  him  again,  and 
wondered  whether  he  had  a  mother.  Presently 
Dorcas  came  in,  stout  and  matronly,  and  cast  a 
maternal  eye  on  the  boy  and  smoothed  his  pillow. 
She  had  sons  herself,  and  two  of  them  had  been 
claimed  by  the  pitiless  sea. 

"It's  lucky  I  had  a  sensible  nightgown  to  give 
him,"  she  remarked.  "If  we  had  had  only  the 
flimsy  things  that  you  and  Miss  Janet  wear " 

"Shi"  said  Miss  Ursula,  colouring  faintly; 
"he  might  hear  you." 

Dorcas  laughs  and  went  out.  Miss  Ursula's 
needles  chcked  rapidly.  When  she  glanced  at  the 
bed  again  she  became  conscious  of  two  great  dark 
eyes  regarding  her  in  utter  wonder.  She  rose 
quickly  and  went  over  to  the  bed. 

"Don't  be  afraid,"  she  said,  though  what  there 
was  to  terrify  him  in  her  mild  demeanom*  and  the 
spotless  room  she  could  not  have  explained;  "don't 
be  afraid,  you're  among  friends." 

He  mimnm-ed  some  words  which  she  did  not 
catch. 

"What  do  you  say?"  she  asked  sweetly. 

He  repeated  them  in  a  stronger  voice.    Then  she 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  51 

realised  that  he  spoke  in  a  foreign  tongue.  A  queer 
dismay  filled  her. 

"Don't  you  speak  English?" 

He  looked  at  her  for  a  moment,  puzzled.  Then 
the  echo  of  the  last  word  seemed  to  reach  his  in- 
teUigence.  He  shook  his  head.  A  memory  rose 
from  schoolgirl  days. 

'' Parlez-vous  frangais?'"  she  faltered;  and  when 
he  shook  his  head  again  she  almost  felt  reheved. 
Then  he  began  to  talk,  regarding  her  earnestly,  as 
if  seeking  by  his  mere  intentness  to  make  her  under- 
stand. But  it  was  a  strange  language  which  she 
had  not  heard  before. 

In  one  mighty  effort  Miss  Ursula  gathered  together 
her  whole  stock  of  German. 

'^Sprechen  Sie  deutsch?'" 

'^Ach  ja!  Einige  Worte,''  he  replied,  and  his 
face  Ht  up  with  a  smile  so  radiant  that  Miss  Ursula 
wondered  how  Providence  could  have  neglected  to 
inspire  a  being  so  beautiful  with  a  knowledge  of  the 
English  language,  "/c/i  kann  mich  auf  deutsch 
versldndlich  machen,  aber  ich  bin  polnisch." 

But  not  a  word  of  the  halting  sentence  could  Miss 
Ursula  make  out;  even  the  last  was  swallowed  up 
in  guttural  unintelligibiKty.  She  only  recognised 
the  speech  as  German  and  different  from  that  which 
he  used  at  first,  and  which  seemed  to  be  his  native 
tongue. 

"Oh,  dear,  I  must  give  it  up,"  she  sighed. 

The  patient  moved  slightly  and  uttered  a  sudden 
cry  of  pain.  It  occurred  to  Miss  Ursula  that  he 
had  not  had  time  to  realise  the  fractured  ankle. 


52  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

That  he  realised  it  now  was  obvious,  for  he  lay  back 
with  closed  eyes  and  white  lips  until  the  spasm  had 
passed.  After  that  Miss  Ursula  did  her  best  to 
explain  in  pantomime  what  had  happened.  She 
made  a  gesture  of  swimming,  then  laid  her  cheek  on 
her  hand  and  simulated  fainting,  acted  her  dis- 
covery of  his  body  on  the  beach,  broke  a  wooden 
match  in  two  and  pointed  to  his  ankle,  exhibited 
the  medicine  bottles  by  the  bedside,  smoothed  his 
pillow,  and  smiled  so  as  to  assure  him  of  kind  treat- 
ment. He  imderstood,  more  or  less,  murmured 
thanks  in  his  own  language,  took  her  hand,  and  to 
her  English  woman's  astonishment,  pressed  it  to 
his  lips.  Miss  Widdington,  entering  softly,  found 
the  pair  in  this  romantic  situation. 

When  it  dawned  on  him  a  while  later  that  he 
owed  his  deliverance  equally  to  both  of  the  gentle 
ladies,  he  kissed  Miss  Widdington's  hand  too. 
Whereupon  Miss  Ursula  coloured  and  turned  away. 
She  did  not  like  to  see  him  kiss  her  sister's  hand. 
Why,  she  could  not  tell,  but  she  felt  as  if  she  had 
received  a  tiny  stab  in  the  heart. 

Ill 

PROvroENCE  has  showered  many  blessings  on 
Trevannic,  but  among  them  is  not  the  gift  of  tongues. 
Dr.  Mead,  who  came  over  every  day  from  St. 
Madoc,  knew  less  German  than  the  ladies.  It 
was  impossible  to  communicate  with  the  boy  except 
by  signs.  Old  Jan  Pendered,  who  had  served  in  the 
navy  in  the  China  seas,  felt  confident  that  he  could 
make  him  imderstand,  and  tried  him  with  pidgin- 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  53 

English.  But  the  youth  only  smiled  sweetly  and 
shook  hands  with  him,  whereupon  old  Jan  scratched 
his  head  and  acknowledged  himself  jiggered.  To 
Miss  Widdington,  at  last,  came  the  inspiration  that 
the  oft-repeated  word  ''Polnisch"  meant  Polish. 

"You  come  from  Poland?" 

"Aiw  Polen,  ja,"  laughed  the  boy. 

"Kosciusko,"  murmured  Miss  Ursula. 

He  laughed  again,  dehghted,  and  looked  at  her 
eagerly  for  more;  but  there  Miss  Ursula's  conversa- 
tion about  Poland  ended.  If  the  discovery  of  his 
nationahty  lay  to  the  credit  of  her  sister,  she  it  was 
who  found  out  his  name,  Andrea  Marowski,  and 
taught  him  to  say:  "Miss  Ursula."  She  also 
taught  him  the  English  names  of  the  various  objects 
around  him.  And  here  the  innocent  rivalry  of  the 
two  ladies  began  to  take  definite  form.  Miss 
Widdington,  without  taking  counsel  of  Miss  Ursula, 
borrowed  an  old  Otto's  German  grammar  from  the 
girls'  school  at  St.  Madoc,  and,  by  means  of  patient 
research,  put  to  him  such  questions  as:  "Have  you 
a  mother?"  "How  old  are  you?"  and,  collating  his 
written  replies  with  the  information  vouchsafed  by 
the  granmaar,  succeeded  in  discovering,  among 
other  biographical  facts,  that  he  was  alone  in  the 
worid,  save  for  an  old  uncle  who  lived  in  Cracow, 
and  that  he  was  twenty  years  of  age.  So  that  when 
Miss  Ursula  boasted  that  she  had  taught  him  to  say: 
"Good  morning.  How  do  you  do?"  Miss  Widding- 
ton could  cry  with  an  air  of  trimnph:  "He  told  me 
that  he  doesn't  suffer  from  toothache." 

It  was  one  of  the  cm-ious  features  of  the  min- 


54  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

istrations  which  they  afforded  Mr.  Andrea  Marowski 
alternately,  that  Miss  Ursula  would  have  nothing 
whatever  to  do  with  Otto's  German  grammar  and 
Miss  Widdington.  scorned  the  use  of  English  and 
made  as  httle  use  of  sign  language  as  possible. 

"I  don't  think  it  becoming,  Ursula,"  she  said,  "to 
indicate  hunger  by  opening  your  mouth  and  rubbing 
the  front  of  your  waist,  like  a  cannibal." 

Miss  Ursula  accepted  the  rebuke  meekly,  for  she 
never  returned  a  pert  answer  to  her  senior;  but  re- 
flecting that  Janet's  disapproval  might  possibly 
arise  from  her  want  of  skill  in  the  art  of  pantomime, 
she  went  away  comforted  and  continued  her  im- 
becoming  practices.  The  conversations,  however, 
that  the  ladies,  each  in  her  own  way,  managed  to 
have  with  the  invahd,  were  sadly  limited  in  scope. 
No  means  that  they  could  devise  could  bring  them 
enhghtenment  on  many  interesting  points.  Who  he 
was,  whether  noble  or  peasant,  how  he  came  to  be 
lying  like  a  jellyfish  on  the  slab  of  rock  in  their  cove, 
coatless  and  barefoot,  remained  as  great  a  puzzle  as 
ever.  Of  coiu'se  he  informed  them,  especially  the 
grammar-equipped  Miss  Widdington,  over  and  over 
again  in  his  execrable  German;  but  they  grew  no 
wiser,  and  at  last  they  abandoned  in  despair  their 
attempts  to  solve  these  mysteries.  They  contented 
themselves  with  the  actual,  which  indeed  was  enough 
to  absorb  their  simple  minds.  There  he  was  cast  up 
by  the  sea  or  fallen  from  the  moon,  young,  gay,  and 
helpless,  a  veritable  gift  of  the  gods.  The  very 
mystery  of  his  adventure  invested  him  with  a 
curious  charm;    and  then  the  prodigious  appetite 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  55 

with  which  he  began  to  devour  fish  and  eggs  and 
chickens  formed  of  itself  a  joy  hitherto  undreamed 
of  in  their  philosophy. 

"When  he  gets  up  he  must  have  some  clothes," 
said  Miss  Widdington. 

Miss  Ursula  agreed;  but  did  not  say  that  she  was 
knitting  him  socks  in  secret.  Andrea's  interest  in 
the  progress  of  these  garments  was  one  of  her  chief 
delights. 

"  There's  the  trunk  upstairs  with  our  dear  father's 
things,"  said  Miss  Widdington  with  more  diffidence 
than  usual.  "They  are  so  sacred  to  us  that  I  was 
wondering " 

"Our  dear  father  would  be  the  first  to  wish  it," 
said  Miss  Ursula. 

"It's  a  Christian's  duty  to  clothe  the  naked," 
said  Miss  Widdington. 

"And  so  we  must  clothe  him  in  what  we've  got," 
said  Miss  Ursula.  Then  with  a  shght  flush  she 
added:  "It's  so  many  years  since  our  great  loss 
that  I've  almost  forgotten  what  a  man  wears." 

"I  haven't,"  said  Miss  Widdington.  "I  think  I 
ought  to  tell  you,  Ursula,"  she  continued,  after 
pausing  to  put  sugar  and  milk  into  the  cup  of  tea 
which  she  handed  to  her  sister  —  they  were  at  the 
breakfast  table,  at  the  head  of  which  she  formally 
presided,  as  she  had  done  since  her  emancipation 
from  the  schoohoom  —  "I  think  I  ought  to  teU  you 
that  I  have  decided  to  devote  my  twenty-five 
pounds  to  buying  him  an  outfit.  Our  dear  father's 
things  can  only  be  a  makeshift  —  and  the  poor  boy 
hasn't  a  penny  in  the  pockets  he  came  ashore  in." 


56  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Now,  some  three  years  before,  an  aunt  had  be- 
queathed Miss  Widdington  a  tiny  legacy,  the  dis- 
posal of  which  had  been  a  continuous  subject  of 
grave  discussion  between  the  sisters.  She  always 
alluded  to  it  as  "my  twenty-five  pounds." 

"Is  that  quite  fair,  dear?"  said  Miss  Ursula 
impulsively. 

"Fair?    Do  you  mind  explaining?" 

Miss  Ursula  regretted  her  impetuosity.  "Don't 
you  think,  dear  Janet,"  she  said  with  some  nervous- 
ness, "that  it  would  lay  him  under  too  great  an 
obhgation  to  you  personally?  I  should  prefer  to 
take  the  money  our  of  out  joint  income.  We  both 
are  responsible  for  him  and,"  she  added  with  a 
timid  smile,  "I  found  him  first." 

"I  don't  see  what  that  has  to  do  with  it,"  Miss 
Widdington  retorted  with  a  quite  unusual  touch  of 
acidity.  "But  if  you  feel  strongly  about  it,  I  am 
willing  to  withdraw  my  five-and-twenty  pounds." 

"You're  not  angry  with  me,  Janet?" 

"Angry?  Of  course  not,"  Miss  Widdington  re- 
plied freezingly.  "Don't  be  silly.  And  why  aren't 
you  eating  your  bacon?" 

This  was  the  first  shadow  of  dissension  that  had 
arisen  between  them  since  their  childhood.  On  the 
way  to  the  sick-room.  Miss  Ursula  shed  a  few  tears 
over  Janet's  hectoring  ways,  and  Miss  Widdington, 
in  pursuit  of  her  housekeeping  duties,  made  Dorcas 
the  scapegoat  for  Ursula's  unreasonableness.  Be- 
fore luncheon  time  they  kissed  with  mutual  apologies; 
but  the  spirit  of  rivalry  was  by  no  means  quenched. 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  57 

IV 

One  afternoon  Miss  Janet  had  an  inspiration. 

"If  I  played  the  piano  in  the  drawing-room  with 
the  windows  open  you  could  hear  it  in  the  spare 
room  quite  plainly." 

"  If  you  think  it  would  disturb  Mr.  Andrea,"  said 
Miss  Ursula,  "you  might  shut  the  windows." 

"I  was  proposing  to  offer  him  a  distraction,  dear," 
said  Miss  Widdington.  "These  foreign  gentlemen 
are  generally  fond  of  music." 

Miss  Ursula  could  raise  no  objection,  but  her  heart 
sank.    She  could  not  play  the  piano. 

She  took  her  seat  cheerfully,  however,  by  the  bed, 
which  had  been  wheeled  up  to  the  window,  so  that  the 
patient  could  look  out  on  the  glory  of  sky  and  sea, 
took  her  knitting  from  a  drawer  and  began  to  turn 
the  heel  of  one  of  the  sacred  socks.  Andrea  watched 
her  lazily  and  contentedly.  Perhaps  he  had  never 
seen  two  such  soft-treadjed,  soft-fingered  ladies  in 
lavender  in  his  Ufe.  He  often  tried  to  give  some  ex- 
pression to  his  gratitude,  and  the  hand-kissing  had 
befcome  a  thrice  daily  custom.  For  Miss  Widding- 
ton he  had  written  the  word  "Engel,"  which  the 
vocabulary  at  the  end  of  Otto's  German  grammar 
rendered  as  "Angel";  whereat  she  had  blushed 
quite  prettily.  For  Miss  Ursula  he  had  drawn, 
very  badly,  but  still  unmistakably,  the  picture  of  a 
winged  denizen  of  Paradise,  and  she,  too,  had 
treasured  the  compliment;  she  also  treasured  the 
drawing.  Now,  Miss  Ursula  held  vtp  the  knitting, 
which  began  distinctly  to  indicate  the  shape  of  a 


58  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

sock,  and  smiled.  Andrea  smiled,  too,  and  blew  her 
a  kiss  with  his  fingers.  He  had  many  graceful  foreign 
gestm-es.  The  doctor,  who  was  a  plain,  bullet- 
headed  Briton,  disapproved  of  Andrea  and  expressed 
to  Dorcas  his  opinion  that  the  next  things  to  be 
washed  ashore  would  be  the  young  man's  monkey 
and  organ.  This  was  sheer  prejudice,  for  Andrea's 
manners  were  unexceptionable,  and  his  smile,  in  the 
eyes  of  his  hostesses,  the  most  attractive  thing  in  the 
world. 

"Heel,"  said  Miss  Ursula. 

"'Eel,"  repeated  Andrea. 

"Wool,"  said  Miss  Ursula. 

"Vool,"  said  Andrea. 

"No  —  wo-o,"  said  Miss  Ursula,  puffing  out  her 
Hps  so  as  to  accentuate  the  "w." 

"Wo-o,"  said  Andrea,  doing  the  same.  And  then 
they  both  burst  out  laughing.  They  were  enjoying 
themselves  mightily. 

Then,  from  the  drawing-room  below,  came  the 
tinkling  sound  of  the  old  untuned  piano  which  had 
remained  unopened  for  many  years.  It  was  the 
"Spring  Song"  of  Mendelssohn,  played,  schoolgirl 
fashion,  with  uncertain  fingers  that  now  and  then 
struck  false  notes.  The  fight  died  away  from 
Andrea's  face,  and  he  looked  inquiringly,  if  not 
wonderingly,  at  Miss  Ursula.  She  smiled  encourage- 
ment, pointed  first  at  the  floor,  and  then  at  him, 
thereby  indicating  that  the  music  was  for  his  bene- 
fit. For  awhile  he  remained  quite  patient.  At 
last  he  clapped  his  hands  on  his  ears,  and,  his  features 
distorted  with  pain,  cried  out: 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  59 

"  Nein,  nein,  nein,  das  lieV  ich  nicht!  Es  ist  hdss- 
lich!'' 

In  eager  pantomime  he  besought  her  to  stop  the 
entertainment.  Miss  Ursula  went  downstairs,  halt- 
ing to  hurt  her  sister's  feehngs,  yet  unable  to  crush  a 
wicked,  unregenerate  feeling  of  pleasure. 

"I  am  so  sorry,  dear  Janet,"  she  said,  laying  her 
hand  on  her  sister's  arm,  "but  he  doesn't  like  music. 
It's  astonishing,  his  dislike.  It  makes  him  quite 
violent." 

Miss  Widdington  ceased  playing  and  accompanied 
her  sister  upstairs.  Andrea,  with  an  expressive  shrug 
of  the  shoulders,  reached  out  his  two  hands  to  the 
musician  and,  taking  hers,  kissed  her  finger-tips. 
Miss  Widdington  consulted  Otto. 

''Lieben  Sie  nicht  Musik?"" 

''Ja  wohl"  he  cried,  and,  laughing,  played  an 
imaginary  fiddle. 

"He  does  like  music,"  cried  Miss  Widdington. 
"How  can  you  make  such  silly  mistakes,  Ursula .►* 
Only  he  prefers  the  violin." 

Miss  Ursula  grew  downcast  for  a  moment;  then 
she  brightened.    A  brilliant  idea  occurred  to  her. 

"Adam  Penruddocke.  He  has  a  fiddle.  We  can 
ask  him  to  come  up  after  tea  and  play  to  us." 

She  reassured  Andrea  in  her  queer  sign-language, 
and  later  in  the  afternoon  Adam  Penruddocke,  a 
sheepish  giant  of  a  fisherman,  was  shown  into  the 
room.  He  bowed  to  the  ladies,  shook  the  long  white 
hand  proffered  him  by  the  beautiful  youth,  tuned  up, 
and  played  "The  Carnival  of  Venice"  from  start  to 
finish.    Andrea    regarded    him    with    mischievous. 


60  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

laughing  eyes,  and  at  the  end  he  applauded  vigor- 
ously. 

Miss  Widdington  turned  to  her  sister. 

"I  knew  he  liked  music,"  she  said. 

"Shall  I  play  something  else,  sir.*^"  asked  Penrud- 
docke. 

Andrea,  guessing  his  meaning,  beckoned  him  to 
approach  the  bed,  and  took  the  violin  and  bow 
from  his  hands.  He  looked  at  the  instrument  criti- 
cally, smiled  to  himself,  tuned  it  afresh,  and  with 
an  air  of  intense  happiness  drew  the  bow  across  the 
strings. 

"Why,  he  can  play  it!"  cried  Miss  Ursula. 

Andrea  laughed  and  nodded,  and  played  a  bit  of 
"The  Carnival  of  Venice"  as  it  ought  to  be  played, 
with  gaiety  and  mischief.  Then  he  broke  off,  and 
after  two  or  three  tearing  chords  that  made  his 
hearers  start,  plunged  into  a  wild  czardas.  The 
ladies  looked  at  him  in  open-mouthed  astonishment 
as  the  mad  music  such  as  they  had  never  heard  ia 
their  hves  before  filled  the  Httle  room  with  its  riot 
and  devilry.  Penruddocke  stood  and  panted,  his 
eyes  staring  out  of  his  head.  When  Andrea  had 
finished  there  was  a  bewildered  silence.  He  nodded 
pleasantly  at  his  audience,  delighted  at  the  effect 
he  had  produced.  Then,  with  an  artist's  malice, 
he  went  to  the  other  extreme  of  emotion.  He  played 
a  sobbing  folk-song,  rending  the  heart  with  cries 
of  woe  and  desolation  and  broken  hopes.  It  clutched 
at  the  heart-strings,  turning  them  into  vibrating 
chords;  it  pierced  the  soul  with  its  poignant  de- 
spair; it  ended  in  a  long-drawn-out  note  high  up  in 


lADIES  IN  LAVENDER  61 

the  treble,  whose  pain  became  intolerable;  and  the 
end  was  greeted  with  a  sharp  gasp  of  relief.  The 
white  hps  of  the  ruddy  giant  quivered.  Tears 
streamed  down  the  cheeks  of  Miss  Widdington  and 
Miss  Ursula.  Again  there  was  silence,  but  this  time 
it  was  broken  by  a  clear,  shrill  voice  outside. 

* '  Encore  I    Encore ! ' ' 

The  sisters  looked  at  one  another.  Who  had 
dared  intrude  at  such  a  moment.^  Miss  Widdington 
went  to  the  window  to  see. 

In  the  garden  stood  a  young  woman  of  inde- 
pendent bearing,  with  a  pallette  and  brushes  in  her 
hand.  An  easel  was  pitched  a  few  yards  beyond  the 
gate.  Miss  Widdington  regarded  this  young  woman 
with  marked  disfavour.  The  girl  calmly  raised  her 
eyes. 

"I  apologise  for  trespassing  like  this,"  she  said, 
"but  I  simply  couldn't  resist  coming  nearer  to  this 
marvellous  violin-playing  —  and  my  exclamation 
came  out  almost  unconsciously." 

"You  arCs  quite  welcome  to  Usten,"  said  Miss 
Widdington  stiffly. 

"May  I  ask  who  is  playing  it?" 

Miss  Widdington  almost  gasped  at  the  girl's 
impertinence.    The  latter  laughed  frankly. 

"  I  ask  because  it  seems  as  if  it  could  only  be  one 
of  the  big,  well-known  people." 

"It's  a  young  friend  who  is  staying  with  us,'* 
said  Miss  Widdington. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  SEiid  the  girl.  "But,  you 
see  my  brother  is  Boris  Danilof,  the  violinist,  so  I've 
that  excuse  for  being  interested." 


62  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"I  don't  think  Mr.  Andrea  can  play  any  more 
to-day,"  said  Miss  Ursula  from  her  seat  by  the  bed. 
"He's  tired." 

Miss  Widdington  repeated  this  information  to 
Miss  Danilof,  who  bade  her  good  afternoon  and 
withdrew  to  her  easel. 

"A  most  forward,  objectionable  girl,"  exclaimed 
Miss  Widdington.  "And  who  is  Boris  Danilof,  I 
should  like  to  know.*^" 

If  she  had  but  understood  German,  Andrea  could 
have  told  her.  He  caught  at  the  name  of  the 
worid-famous  violinist  and  bent  eageriy  forward  in 
great  excitement. 

"Boris  Danilof. '^    1st  er  unten?'" 

^'Nicht  —  I  mean  Nein,''  rephed  Miss  Widdington, 
proud  at  not  having  to  consult  Otto. 

Andrea  sank  back  disappointed,  on  his  pillow. 


However  much  Miss  Widdington  disapproved  of 
the  young  woman,  and  however  little  the  sisters 
knew  of  Boris  Danilof,  it  was  obvious  that  they  were 
harbouring  a  remarkable  violinist.  That  even  the 
bullet-headed  doctor,  who  had  played  the  double 
bass  in  his  Hospital  Orchestral  Society  and  was, 
therefore,  an  authority,  freely  admitted.  It  gave 
the  romantic  youth  a  new  and  somewhat  awe- 
inspiring  value  in  the  eyes  of  the  ladies.  He  was  a 
genius,  said  Miss  Ursula  —  and  her  imagination 
became  touched  by  the  magic  of  the  word.  As  he 
grew  stronger  he  played  more.  His  fame  spread 
through  the  village  and  he  gave  recitals  to  crowded 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  63 

audience  —  as  many  fisher-folk  as  could  be  squeezed 
into  the  Uttle  bedroom,  and  more  standing  in  the 
garden  below.  Miss  Danflof  did  not  come  again. 
The  ladies  learned  that  she  was  staying  in  the  next 
village,  Polwem,  two  or  three  miles  off.  In  their 
joy  at  Andrea's  recovery  they  forgot  her  existence. 

Happy  days  came  when  he  could  rise  from  bed 
and  hobble  about  on  a  crutch,  attired  in  the  quaint 
garments  of  Captain  Widdington,  r.n.,  who  had 
died  twenty  years  before,  at  the  age  of  seventy-three. 
They  added  to  his  romantic  appearance,  giving  him 
the  air  of  the  jeune  premier  in  costume  drama. 
There  was  a  blue  waistcoat  with  gilt  buttons,  cal- 
culated to  win  any  feminine  approval.  The  ladies 
admired  him  vastly.  Conversation  was  stiU  dif- 
ficult, as  Miss  Ursula  had  succeeded  in  teaching 
him  very  little  English,  and  Miss  Widdington,  after 
a  desperate  grapple  with  Otto  on  her  own  account, 
had  given  up  the  German  language  in  despair. 
But  what  matters  the  tongue  when  the  heart  speaks.** 
And  the  hearts  of  Miss  Widdington  and  Miss  Ursula 
spoke;  delicately,  timidly,  tremulously,  in  the  whis- 
I)er  of  an  evening  breeze,  in  undertones,  it  is  true  — 
yet  they  spoke  all  the  same.  The  first  walks  on  the 
heather  of  their  cliff  in  the  pure  spring  sunshine  were 
rare  joys.  As  they  had  done  with  their  watches  by 
his  bedside,  they  took  it  in  turns  to  walk  with  him; 
and  each  in  her  turn  of  soHtude  felt  httle  pricklings 
of  jealousy.  But  as  each  had  instituted  with  him 
her  own  particular  dainty  relations  and  confidences 
—  Miss  Widdington  more  maternal.  Miss  Ursula 
more   sisterly  —  to   which   his   artistic   nature   re- 


64  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

sponded  involuntarily,  each  felt  sure  that  she  was 
the  one  who  had  gained  his  especial  affection. 

Thus  they  wove  their  gossamer  webs  of  romance 
in  the  secret  recess  of  their  souls.  What  they 
hoped  for  was  as  dim  and  vague  as  their  concept  of 
heaven,  and  as  pure.  They  looked  only  at  the  near 
future  —  a  circle  of  light  encompassed  by  mists; 
but  in  the  circle  stood  ever  the  beloved  figure. 
They  could  not  imagine  him  out  of  it.  He  would 
stay  with  them,  irradiating  their  lives  with  his 
youth  and  his  gaiety,  playing  to  them  his  divine 
music,  kissing  their  hands,  until  he  grew  quite  strong 
and  well  again.  And  that  was  a  long,  long  way  off. 
Meanwhile  life  was  a  perpetual  spring.  Why  should 
it  ever  end? 

One  afternoon  they  sat  in  the  sunny  garden,  the 
ladies  busy  with  needlework,  and  Andrea  playing 
snatches  of  dreamy  things  on  the  violin.  The 
dainty  remains  of  tea  stood  on  a  table,  and  the  young 
man's  crutch  rested  against  it.  Presently  he  began 
to  play  Tschaikowsky's  "Chanson  Triste."  Miss 
Ursula,  looking  up,  saw  a  girl  of  plain  face  and  in- 
dependent bearing  standing  by  the  gate. 

"Who  is  that,  Janet?"  she  whispered. 

Miss  Janet  glanced  round. 

"It  is  the  impertinent  young  woman  who  was 
listening  the  other  day." 

Andrea  followed  their  glances,  and,  perceiving  a 
third  listener,  half  consciously  played  to  her.  When 
the  piece  was  finished  the  girl  slowly  walked  away. 

"I  know  it's  wrong  and  unchristianlike,"  said 
Miss  Widdington,  "but  I  dislike  that  girl  intensely." 


lADIES  IN  LAVENDER  65 

"So  do  I,"  said  Miss  Ursula.    Then  she  laughed. 
"She  looks  like  the  wicked  fairy  in  a  stxjry-book." 


VI 

The  time  came  when  he  threw  aside  his  crutch  and 
flew,  laughing,  away  beyond  their  control.  This 
they  did  not  mind,  for  he  always  came  back  and  ac- 
companied them  on  their  wUd  rambles.  He  now 
resembled  the  ordinary  young  man  of  the  day  as 
nearly  as  the  St.  Madoc  tailors  and  hosiers  could 
contrive;  and  the  astonishing  fellow,  with  his 
cameo  face  and  his  hyacinthine  locks,  still  looked 
picturesque. 

One  morning  he  took  Pendruddocke's  fiddle  and 
went  off,  in  high  spirits,  and  when  he  returned  in  the 
late  afternoon  his  face  was  flushed  and  a  new  hght 
burned  in  his  eyes.  He  explained  his  adventures 
volubly.  They  had  a  vague  impression  that, 
Orion-Hke,  he  had  been  playing  his  stringed  instru- 
ment to  dolphins  and  waves  and  things  some  miles 
off  along  the  coast.  To  please  him  they  said  ''J a" 
at  every  pause  in  his  narration,  and  he  thought  they 
understood.    Finally  he  kissed  their  hands. 

Two  mornings  later  he  started,  without  his  fiddle, 
immediately  after  breakfast.  To  Miss  Ursula,  who 
accompanied  him  down  the  road  to  the  village,  he 
announced  Polwem  as  his  destination.  Unsuspect- 
ing and  happy,  she  bade  him  good-bye  and  lovingly 
watched  his  lithe  young  figure  disappear  behind  the 
bounding  cliff  of  the  little  bay. 

Miss  Olga  Danilof  sat  reading  a  novel  by  the  door 


66  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

of  the  cottage  where  she  lodged  when  the  beautiful 
youth  came  up.    He  raised  his  hat  —  she  nodded. 

"Well,"  she  said  in  German,  "have  you  told  the 
funny  old  maids  .^" 

"^c/i,"  said  he,  "they  are  dear,  gracious  ladies  — 
but  I  have  told  them." 

"I've  heard  from  my  brother,"  she  remarked, 
taking  a  letter  from  the  book.  "He  trusts  my 
judgment  imphcitly,  as  I  said  he  would  —  and  you 
are  to  come  with  me  to  London  at  once." 

"To-day  .3" 

"By  the  midday  train." 

He  looked  at  her  in  amazement.  "But  the  dear 
ladies " 

"You  can  write  and  explain.  My  brother's  time 
is  valuable  —  he  has  already  put  off  his  journey  to 
Paris  one  day  in  order  to  see  you." 

"But  I  have  no  money,"  he  objected  weakly. 

"What  does  that  matter.^  I  have  enough  for  the 
railway  ticket,  and  when  you  see  Boris  he  wiU  give 
you  an  advance.  Oh,  don't  be  grateful,"  she  added 
in  her  independent  way.  "In  the  first  place,  we're 
brother  artists,  and  in  the  second  it's  a  pure  matter 
of  business.  It's  much  better  to  put  yourself  in  the 
hands  of  Boris  Danilof  and  make  a  fortune  in  Europe 
than  to  play  in  a  restaurant  orchestra  in  New  York; 
don't  you  think  so?" 

Andrea  did  think  so,  and  he  blessed  the  storm  that 
drove  the  ship  out  of  its  course  from  Hamburg  and 
terrified  him  out  of  his  wits  in  his  steerage  quarters, 
so  that  he  rushed  on  deck  in  shirt  and  trousers, 
grasping  a  fife-belt,  only  to  be  cursed  one  moment 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  67 

by  a  sailor  and  the  next  to  be  swept  by  a  wave  clean 
over  the  taffrail  into  the  sea.  He  blessed  the  storm 
and  he  blessed  the  wave  and  he  blessed  the  life-belt 
which  he  lost  just  before  consciousness  left  him; 
and  he  blessed  the  jag  of  rock  on  the  sandy  cove 
against  which  he  must  have  broken  his  ankle;  and 
he  blessed  the  ladies  and  the  sun  and  the  sea  and 
sky  and  Olga  Danilof  and  the  whole  of  this  beautiful 
world  that  had  suddenly  laid  itself  at  his  feet. 

The  village  cart  drew  up  by  the  door,  and  Miss 
Danilof's  luggage  that  lay  ready  in  the  hall  was 
lifted  in. 

"Come,"  she  said.  "You  can  ask  the  old  maids 
to  send  on  your  things." 

He  laughed.  "  I  have  no  things.  I  am  as  free  as 
the  wind." 

At  St.  Madoc,  whence  he  intended  to  send  a  tele- 
gram to  the  dear,  gracious  ladies,  they  only  had  just 
time  to  catch  the  train.  He  sent  no  telegram;  and 
as  they  approached  London  he  thought  less  and  less 
about  it,  his  mind,  after  the  manner  of  youth,  full  of 
the  wonder  that  was  to  be. 


VII 

The  ladies  sat  down  to  tea.  Eggs  were  ready  to  be 
boiled  as  soon  as  he  returned.  Not  having  lunched, 
he  would  be  hungry.  But  he  did  not  come.  By 
dinner-time  they  grew  anxious.  They  postponed  the 
meal.  Dorcas  came  into  the  drawing-room  peri- 
odically to  report  deterioration  of  cooked  viands. 
But  they  could  not  eat  the  meal  alone.    At  last  they 


68  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

grew  terrified  lest  some  evil  should  have  befallen 
him,  and  Miss  Widdington  went  in  to  the  village  and 
despatched  Jan  Pendered,  and  Joe  Gullow  on  his 
bicycle,  in  search.  When  she  returned  she  found  Miss 
Ursula  looking  as  if  she  had  seen  a  ghost. 

"Janet,  that  girl  is  living  there." 

"Where.li" 

"Polwern.    He  went  there  this  morning." 

Miss  Widdington  felt  as  if  a  cold  hand  had  touched 
her  heart,  but  she  knew  that  it  behoved  her  as  the 
elder  to  dismiss  her  sister's  fears.  \ 

"You're  talking  nonsense,  Ursula;  he  has  never 
met  her." 

"How  do  we  know?"  urged  Miss  Ursula. 

"I  don't  consider  it  dehcate,"  replied  Miss  Wid- 
dington, "to  discuss  the  possibihty." 

They  said  no  more,  and  went  out  and  stood  by  the 
gate,  waiting  for  their  messengers.  The  moon  rose 
and  silvered  the  sea,  and  the  sea  breeze  sprang  up; 
the  surf  broke  in  a  melancholy  rhythm  on  the  sands 
beneath.  * 

"It  sounds  like  the  'Chanson  Triste,'"  said  Miss 
Ursula.  And  before  them  both  rose  the  picture  of  the 
girl  standing  there  like  an  Evil  Fairy  while  Andrea 
played. 

At  last  Jan  Pendered  appeared  on  the  cliff.  The 
ladies  went  out  to  meet  him. 

Then  they  learned  what  had  happened. 

In  a  dignified  way  they  thanked  Jan  Pendered  and 
gave  him  a  shilling  for  Joe  Gullow,  who  had  brought 
the  news.  They  bade  him  good  night  in  clear,  brave 
voices,  and  walked  back  very  silent  and  upright 


LADIES  IN  LAVENDER  69 

through  the  garden  into  the  house.  In  the  drawing- 
room  they  turned  to  each  other,  and,  their  arms 
about  each  other's  necks,  they  broke  down  utterly. 

The  stranger  woman  had  come  and  had  taken  him 
away  from  them.  Youth  had  flown  magnetically  to 
youth.  They  were  left  alone  unheeded  in  the  dry 
lavender  of  their  Uves. 

The  moonlight  streamed  through  the  white- 
curtained  casement  window  into  the  white,  spotless 
room.  It  shone  on  the  two  httle  white  beds,  on  the 
white  garments,  neatly  folded  on  white  chairs,  on 
the  white-whiskered  gentleman  over  the  mantle- 
piece,  and  on  the  white  faces  of  the  sisters.  They 
slept  Uttle  that  night.  Once  Miss  Widdington 
spoke. 

"Ursula,  we  must  go  to  sleep  and  forget  it  all. 
We've  been  two  old  fools." 

Miss  Ursula  sobbed  for  answer.  With  the  dawn 
came  a  certain  quietude  of  spirit.  She  rose,  put  on 
her  dressing-gown,  and,  leaving  her  sister  asleep, 
stole  out  on  tiptoe.  The  window  was  open  and  the 
curtains  were  undrawn  in  the  boy's  empty  room. 
She  leaned  on  the  sill  and  looked  out  over  the  sea. 
Sooner  or  later,  she  knew,  would  come  a  letter  of 
explanation.  She  hoped  Janet  would  not  force  her 
to  read  it.  She  no  longer  wanted  to  know  whence 
he  came,  whither  he  was  going.  It  were  better  for 
her,  she  thought,  not  to  know.  It  were  better  for 
her  to  cherish  the  most  beautiful  thing  that  had 
ever  entered  her  life.  For  all  those  years  she  had 
waited  for  the  prince  who  never  came;  and  he  had 
come  at  last  out  of  fairyland,  cast  up  by  the  sea. 


70  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

She  had  had  with  hun  her  brief  season  of  tremulous 
happiness.  If  he  had  been  carried  on,  against  his 
will,  by  the  strange  woman  into  the  unknown  whence 
he  had  emerged,  it  was  only  the  inevitable  ending  of 
such  a  fairy  tale. 

Thus  wisdom  came  to  her  from  sea  and  sky,  and 
made  her  strong.  She  smiled  through  her  tears,  and 
she,  the  weaker,  went  forth  for  the  first  time  in  her 
life  to  c(Mnfort  and  direct  her  sister. 


STUDIES   IN   BLINDNESS 


I 

AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE 


I  HAVE  often  thought  of  editing  the  diary  (which 
is  in  my  possession)  of  one  Jeremy  Wendover, 
of  Bullingford,  in  the  county  of  Berkshire, 
England,  Gent.,  who  departed  this  Kfe  in  the  year  of 
grace  1758,  and  giving  to  the  world  a  document  as 
human  as  the  record  of  Pepys  and  as  deeply  imbued 
with  the  piety  of  a  devout  Christian  as  the  Con- 
fessions of  Saint  Augustine.  A  Httle  emendation  of 
an  occasional  ungrammatical  and  disjointed  text  — 
though  in  the  main  the  diary  is  written  in  the 
scholarly,  florid  style  of  the  eighteenth  century;  a 
Uttle  inteUigent  conjecture  as  to  certain  dates;  a 
footnote  now  and  then  elucidating  an  obscure 
reference  —  and  the  thing  would  be  done.  It  has 
been  a  great  temptation,  but  I  have  resisted  it. 
The  truth  is  that  to  the  casual  reader  the  human  side 
would  seem  to  be  so  meagre,  the  pietistic  so  fuU. 
One  has  to  seek  so  carefully  for  a  few  flowers  of  fact 
among  a  wilderness  of  religious  and  philosophical 
fancy  —  nay,  more:  to  be  so  much  in  sympathy 
with  the  diarist  as  to  translate  the  pious  rhetoric  into 
terms  of  mundane  incident,  that  only  to  the  curious 

73 


74  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

student  can  the  real  life  history  of  the  man  be  re- 
vealed. And  who  in  these  hurrying  days  would 
give  weeks  of  patient  toil  to  a  task  so  barren  of  im- 
mediate profit?  I  myself  certainly  would  not  do 
it;  and  it  is  a  good  working  philosophy  of  life  (though 
it  has  its  drawbacks)  not  to  expect  others  to  do 
what  you  would  not  do  yourself.  It  is  only  because 
the  study  of  these  yellow  pages,  covered  with  the 
brown,  almost  microscopic,  pointed  handwriting, 
has  amused  the  odd  moments  of  years  that  I  have 
arrived  at  something  like  a  comprehension  of  the 
things  that  mattered  so  much  to  Jeremy  Wendover, 
and  so  pathetically  httle  to  any  other  of  the  sons  and 
daughters  of  Adam. 

How  did  the  diary,  you  ask,  come  into  my  pos- 
session? I  picked  it  up,  years  ago,  for  a  franc,  at  a 
second-hand  bookseller's  in  Geneva.  It  had  the 
bookplate  of  a  long-forgotten  Bishop  of  Sodor  and 
Man,  and  an  inscription  on  the  flyleaf:  "John 
Henderson,  Calcutta,  1835."  How  it  came  into  the 
hands  of  the  Bishop,  into  those  of  John  Henderson, 
how  it  passed  thence  and  eventually  found  its  way 
to  Geneva,  Heaven  alone  knows. 

I  have  said  that  Jeremy  Wendover  departed  this 
life  in  1758.  My  authority  for  the  statement  is  a 
hchen-covered  gravestone  in  the  churchyard  of 
Bullingford,  whither  I  have  made  many  pious 
pilgrimages  in  the  hope  of  finding  more  records  of 
my  obscure  hero.  But  I  have  been  unsuccessful. 
The  house,  however,  in  which  he  Hved,  described  at 
some  length  in  his  diary,  is  stiU  standing  —  an  Early 
Tudor  building,  the  residence  of  the  maltster  who 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  75 

owned  the  adjoining  long,  gabled  malthouse,  and 
from  whom  he  rented  it  for  a  considerable  term  of 
years.  It  is  situated  on  the  river  fringe  of  the  little 
town,  at  the  end  of  a  lane  running  at  right  angles  to 
the  main  street  just  before  this  loses  itself  in  the 
market  square. 

I  have  stood  at  the  front  gate  of  the  house  and 
watched  the  Thames,  some  thirty  yards  away,  flow 
between  its  alder-grown  banks;  the  wide,  lush 
meadows  and  cornfields  beyond  dotted  here  and  there 
with  the  red  roofs  of  farms  and  spreading  amid  the 
quiet  greenery  of  oaks  and  chestnuts  to  the  low- 
lying  Oxfordshire  hills;  I  have  breathed  in  the  peace 
of  the  evening  air  and  I  have  found  myself  very  near 
in  spirit  to  Jeremy  Wendover,  who  stood,  as  he  notes, 
many  and  many  a  summer  afternoon  at  that  self- 
same gate,  watching  the  selfsame  scene,  far  away 
from  the  fever  and  the  fret  of  life. 

I  have  thought,  therefore,  that  instead  of  pubHsh- 
ing  his  diary  I  might  with  some  degree  of  sympathy 
set  forth  in  brief  the  one  dramatic  episode  in  his 
inglorious  career. 

n 

The  overwhelming  factor  in  Jeremy  Wendover's 
life  was  the  appalling,  inconceivable  hideousness  of 
his  face.  The  refined,  cultivated,  pious  gentleman 
was  cursed  with  a  visage  which  it  would  have  pleased 
Dante  to  ascribe  to  a  White  Guelph  whom  he  par- 
ticularly disliked,  and  would  have  made  Orcagna 
shudder  in  the  midst  of  his  dreams  of  shapes  of  heU. 
As  a  child  of  six,  in  a  successful  effort  to  rescue  a 


76  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

baby  sister,  he  had  fallen  headforemost  mto  a  great 
wood  fire,  and  when  they  picked  him  up  his  face 
"was  like  mito  a  charred  log  that  had  long 
smouldered."  Almost  the  semblance  of  humanity 
had  been  wiped  from  him,  and  to  all  beholders  he 
became  a  thing  of  horror.  Men  turned  their  heads 
away,  women  shivered  and  children  screamed  at  his 
approach.  He  was  a  pariah,  condemned  from  early 
boyhood  to  an  awful  loneliness.  His  parents,  a 
certain  Sir  JuUus  Wendover,  Baronet,  and  his  wife, 
his  elder  brother  and  his  sisters  —  they  must  have 
been  a  compassionless  family  —  turned  from  him  as 
from  an  evil  and  pestilential  thing.  Love  never 
touched  him  with  its  consoling  feather,  and  for  love 
the  poor  wretch  pined  his  whole  youth  long.  Human 
companionship,  even,  was  denied  him.  He  seems 
to  have  hved  alone  in  a  wing  of  a  great  house,  sel- 
dom straying  beyond  the  bounds  of  the  park,  under 
the  tutorship  of  a  reverend  but  scholarly  sot  who  was 
too  drunken  and  obese  and  unbuttoned  to  be  ad- 
mitted into  the  family  circle.  This  fellow,  one 
Doctor  Tubbs,  of  St.  Catherine's  College,  Cambridge, 
seems  to  have  shown  Jeremy  some  semblance  of 
affection,  but  chiefly  while  in  his  cups,  "when,'* 
as  Jeremy  puts  it  bitterly,  "he  was  too  much  like 
unto  the  beasts  that  perish  to  distinguish  between 
me  and  a  human  being."  When  sober  he  railed  at 
the  boy  for  a  monster,  and  frequently  chastised  him 
for  his  lack  of  beauty.  But,  in  some  strange  way, 
in  alternate  fits  of  slobbering  and  castigating,  he 
managed  to  lay  the  groundwork  of  a  fine  education, 
teaching  Jeremy  the  classics,  Itahan  and  Frendi, 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  77 

some  mathematics,  and  the  elements  of  philosophy 
and  theology;  he  also  discoursed  much  to  him  on 
the  great  world,  of  which,  till  his  misfortunes  came 
upon  him,  he  boasted  of  having  been  a  distinguished 
ornament;  and  when  he  had  three  bottles  of  wine 
inside  him  he  told  his  charge  very  curious  and  in- 
structive things  indeed. 

So  Jeremy  grew  to  man's  estate,  sensitive,  shy, 
living  in  the  world  of  books  and  knowing  little,  save 
at  second-hand,  of  the  ways  of  men  and  women. 
But  with  all  the  secrets  of  the  birds  and  beasts  in 
the  far-stretching  Warwickshire  park  he  was  in- 
timately acquainted.  He  became  part  of  the  wood- 
land life.  Squirrels  would  come  to  him  and  munch 
their  acorns  on  his  shoulder. 

"So  intimate  was  I  in  this  innocent  community," 
says  he,  not  without  quiet  humour,  "  that  I  have  been 
a  wet-nurse  to  weasels  and  called  in  as  physician  to  a 
family  of  moles." 

When  Sir  Julius  died,  Jeremy  received  his  younger 
son's  portion  (fortunately,  it  was  a  goodly  one)  and 
was  turned  neck  and  crop  out  of  the  house  by  his 
ill-conditioned  brother.  Tubbs,  having  also  suf- 
fered ignominious  expulsion,  persuaded  him  to  go  on 
the  grand  tour.  They  started.  But  they  only  got 
as  far  as  Abbeville  on  the  road  to  Paris,  where  Tubbs 
was  struck  down  by  an  apoplexy  of  which  he  died. 
Up  to  that  point  the  sot's  company  had  enabled 
Jeremy  to  endure  the  insult,  ribaldry  and  terror 
that  attended  his  unspeakable  deformity;  but,  left 
alone,  he  lost  heart;  mankind  rejected  him  as  a  pack 
of  wolves  rejects  a  maimed  cub.    Stricken  with  shame 


78  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

and  humiliation  he  crept  back  to  England  and  es- 
tablished himself  in  the  maltster's  house  at  Bulling- 
ford,  guided  thither  by  no  other  consideration  than 
that  it  had  been  the  birthplace  of  the  dissolute  Tubbs. 
He  took  up  his  lonely  abode  there  as  a  boy  of  three- 
and-twenty,  and  there  he  spent  the  long  remainder 
of  his  life. 

\  ra 

The  great  event  happened  in  his  thirty-fourth 
year.  You  may  picture  him  as  a  sohtary,  scholarly 
figure  living  in  the  httle  Tudor  house,  with  its 
muUioned  windows,  set  in  the  midst  of  an  old-world 
garden  bright  with  stocks  and  phlox  and  hollyhocks 
and  great  pink  roses,  its  southern  wall  generously 
glowing  with  purple  plums.  Indoors,  the  house  was 
somewhat  dark.  The  casement  window  of  the  main 
living-room  was  small  and  overshadowed  by  the 
heavy  ivy  outside.  The  furniture,  of  plain  dark  oak, 
mainly  consisted  of  bookcases,  in  which  were  ranged 
the  solemn,  leather-covered  volumes  that  were 
Jeremy's  world.  A  great  table  in  front  of  the  win- 
dow contained  the  books  of  the  moment,  the  latest 
news-sheets  from  London,  and  the  great  brass- 
clasped  volume  in  which  he  wrote  his  diary.  In 
front  of  it  stood  a  great  straight-backed  chair. 

You  may  picture  him  on  a  late  August  afternoon, 
sitting  in  this  chair,  writing  his  diary  by  the  fading 
light.  His  wig  lay  on  the  table,  for  the  weather  was 
close.  He  paused,  pen  in  hand,  and  looked  wistfully 
at  the  mellow  eastern  sky,  lost  in  thought.  Then 
he  wrote  these  words: 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  79 

0  Lord  Jesus,  fill  me  plenlifully  with  Thy  love, 
which  passeth  the  love  of  woman;  for  love  of  woman 
never  will  be  mine,  and  therefore,  0  Lord,  I  require 
Thy  love  bountifully:  I  yearn  for  love  even  cw  a  weaned 
child.  Even  as  a  weaned  child  yearns  for  the  breast  of 
its  mother,  so  yearn  I  for  hoe. 

He  closed  and  clasped  the  book  with  a  sigh,  put  on 
his  wig,  rose  and,  going  into  the  tiny  hall,  opened  the 
kitchen  door  and  announced  to  his  household,  one 
ancient  and  incompetent  crone,  his  intention  of 
taking  the  air.  Then  he  clapped  on  his  old  three- 
cornered  hat  and,  stick  in  hand,  went  out  of  the  front 
gate  into  the  light  of  the  sunset.  He  stood  for  a 
while  watching  the  deep  reflections  of  the  alders  and 
willows  in  the  river  and  the  golden  peace  of  the 
meadows  beyond,  and  his  heart  was  uplifted  iq 
thankfulness  for  the  beauty  of  the  earth.  He  was  a 
tall,  thin  man,  with  the  stoop  of  the  scholar  and, 
despite  his  rough,  country-made  clothes,  the  im- 
mistakable  air  of  the  eighteenth-century  gentleman. 
The  setting  sun  shone  full  on  the  piteous  medley 
of  marred  features  that  served  him  for  a  face. 

A  woman,  sickle  on  arm,  leading  a  toddling  child, 
passed  by  with  averted  head.  But  she  curtsied  and 
said  respectfully:  "Good  evening,  yom*  honour." 
The  child  looked  at  him  and  with  a  cry  of  fear 
shrank  into  the  mother's  skirts.  Jeremy  touched 
his  hat. 

"  Good  evening,  Mistress  Blackacre.  I  trust  your 
husband  is  recovered  from  his  fever." 

"Thanks  to  your  honour's  kindness,"  said  the 


80  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

woman,  her  eyes  always  turned  from  him,  "he  is 
well-nigh  recovered.  For  shame  of  yom^elf!"  she 
added,  shaking  the  child. 

"Nay,  nay,"  said  Jeremy  kindly.  "'Tis  not  the 
m"chin's  fault  that  he  met  a  bogey  in  broad  dayhght." 

He  strolled  along  the  river  bank,  pleased  at  his 
encounter.  In  that  Httle  backwater  of  the  world 
where  he  had  hved  secluded  for  ten  years  folks  had 
learned  to  suffer  him  —  nay,  more,  to  respect  him: 
and  though  they  seldom  looked  him  in  the  face  their 
words  were  gentle  and  friendly.  He  could  even 
jest  at  his  own  misfortune. 

"God  is  good,"  he  murmured  as  he  walked  with 
head  bent  down  and  hands  behind  his  back,  "and  the 
earth  is  full  of  His  goodness.  Yet  if  He  in  His 
mercy  could  only  give  me  a  companion  in  my  lone- 
liness, as  He  gives  to  every  peasant,  bird  and  beast 


A  sigh  ended  the  sentence.  He  was  young  and  not 
always  able  to  control  the  squabble  between  sex  and 
piety.  The  words  had  scarcely  passed  his  hps,  how- 
ever, when  he  discerned  a  female  figure  seated  on  the 
banli,  some  fifty  yards  away.  His  first  impulse  — 
an  impulse  which  the  habit  of  years  would,  on 
ordinary  occasions,  have  rendered  imperative  — 
was  to  make  a  wide  detour  round  the  meadows;  but 
this  evening  the  spirit  of  mild  revolt  took  possession 
of  him  and  guided  his  steps  in  the  direction  of  the 
lady  —  for  lady  he  perceived  her  to  be  when  he 
drew  a  little  nearer. 

She  wore  a  flowered  muslin  dress  cut  open  at  the 
neck,  and  her  arms,  bare  to  the  elbows,  were  white 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  81 

and  shapely.  A  peach-blossom  of  a  face  appeared 
below  the  mob-cap  bomid  by  a  cherry-colom-ed 
ribbon,  and  as  Jeremy  came  within  speaking  dis- 
tance her  dajrk-blue  eyes  were  fixed  on  him  fearlessly. 
Jeremy  halted  and  looked  at  her,  while  she  looked  at 
Jeremy.  His  heart  beat  wildly.  The  miracle  of 
miracles  had  happened  —  the  hopeless,  impossible 
thing  that  he  had  prayed  for  in  rebeUious  hours  for 
so  many  years,  ever  since  he  had  reahsed  that  the 
world  held  such  a  thing  as  the  joy  and  the  blessing  of 
woman's  love.  A  girl  looked  at  him  smilingly, 
frankly  in  the  face,  without  a  quiver  of  repulsion  — 
and  a  girl  more  dainty  and  beautiful  than  any  he  had 
seen  before.  Then,  as  he  stared,  transfixed  like  a 
person  in  a  beatitude,  into  her  eyes,  something 
magical  occurred  to  Jeremy.  The  air  was  filled  with 
the  sound  of  fairy  harps  of  which  his  own  tingling 
nerves  from  head  to  foot  were  the  vibrating  strings. 
Jeremy  fell  instantaneously  in  love. 

"Will  you  tell  me,  sir,"  ^he  said  in  a  musical  voice 
—  the  music  of  the  spheres  to  Jeremy  —  "will  you 
tell  me  how  I  can  reach  the  house  of  Mistress  Wother- 
spoon?" 

Jeremy  took  off  his  three-cornered  hat  and  made  a 
sweeping  bow. 

"Why,  surely,  madam,"  said  he,  pointing  with  his 
stick;  "'tis  yonder  red  roof  peeping  through  the 
trees  only  three  hundred  yards  distant." 

"You  are  a  gentleman,"  said  the  girl  quickly. 

"My  name  is  Jeremy  Wendover,  younger  son  of 
the  late  Sir  Julius  Wendover,  Baronet,  and  now 
and  always,  madam,  your  very  humble  servant." 


82  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

She  smiled.  Her  rosy  lips  and  pearly  teeth 
(Jeremy's  own  description)  filled  Jeremy's  head  with 
Imiatic  imaginings. 

"And  I,  sir,"  said  she,  "am  Mistress  Rarbara 
Seaforth,  and  I  came  but  yesterday  to  stay  with  my 
amit,  Mistress  Wotherspoon.  If  I  could  trespass  so 
far  on  your  courtesy  as  to  pray  you  to  conduct  me 
thither  I  should  be  vastly  beholden  to  you." 

His  sudden  dehght  at  the  proposition  was  mingled 
with  some  astonishment.  She  only  had  to  walk 
across  the  open  meadow  to  the  clump  of  trees.  He 
assisted  her  to  rise  and  with  elaborate  politeness 
offered  his  arm.  She  made  no  motion,  however,  to 
take  it. 

"  I  thought  I  was  walking  in  my  aunt's  Uttle  railed 
enclosure,"  she  remarked;  "but  I  must  have  passed 
through  the  gate  into  the  open  fields,  and  when  I 
came  to  the  river  I  was  frightened  and  sat  down  and 
waited  for  someone  to  pass." 

"Pray  pardon  me,  madam,"  said  Jeremy,  "but  I 
don't  quite  understand " 

"La,  sir!  how  very  thoughtless  of  me,"  she  laughed. 
"I  never  told  you.     I  am  bhnd." 

"Blind!"  he  echoed.  The  leaden  weight  of  a 
piteous  dismay  fell  upon  him.  That  was  why  she 
had  gazed  at  him  so  fearlessly.  She  had  not  seen 
him.  The  miracle  had  not  happened.  For  a  mo- 
ment he  lost  count  of  the  girl's  sad  affliction  in  the 
stress  of  his  own  bitterness.  But  the  lifelong  habit 
of  resignation  prevailed. 

"Madam,  I  crave  your  pardon  for  not  having 
noticed  it,"  he  said  in  an  unsteady  voice.     "And  I 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  83 

admire  the  fortitude  wherewith  you  bear  so  grievous 
a  burden." 

"Just  because  I  can't  see  is  no  reason  for  my 
drowning  the  world  in  my  tears.  We  must  make  the 
best  of  things.  And  there  are  compensations,  too," 
she  added  Kghtly,  allowing  her  hand  to  be  placed  on 
his  arm  and  led  away.  "I  refer  to  an  adventure 
with  a  young  gentleman  which,  were  I  not  blind, 
my  Aunt  Wotherspoon  would  esteem  mightily 
unbecoming." 

"Alas,  madam,"  said  he  with  a  sigh,  "there  you 
are  wrong.     I  am  not  young.     I  am  thirty-three." 

He  thought  it  was  a  great  age.  Mistress  Barbara 
turned  up  her  face  saucily  and  laughed.  Evidently, 
she  did  not  share  his  opinion.  Jeremy  bent  a  wistful 
gaze  into  the  beautiful,  sightless  eyes,  and  then  saw 
what  had  hitherto  escaped  his  notice:  a  thin;  grey 
film  over  the  pupils. 

"How  did  you  know,"  he  asked,  "that  I  was  a 
man,  when  I  came  up  to  you.^" 

"First  by  your  aged,  tottering  footsteps,  sir," 
she  said  with  a  pretty  air  of  mockery,  "which 
were  not  those  of  a  young  girl.  And  then  you 
were  standing  'twixt  me  and  the  sun,  and  one  of 
my  poor  eyes  can  still  distinguish  hght  from 
shadow." 

"How  long  have  you  suifered  from  this  great 
affliction?"  he  asked. 

"  I  have  been  going  blind  for  two  years.  It  is  now 
two  months  since  I  have  lost  sight  altogether.  But 
please  don't  talk  of  it,"  she  added  hastily.  "If  you 
pity  me  I  shall  cry,  which  I  hate,  for  I  want  to  laugh 


84  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

as  much  as  I  can.  I  can  also  walk  faster,  sir,  if  it 
would  not  tire  your  aged  limbs." 

Jeremy  started  guiltily.  She  had  divined  his  evil 
purpose.  But  who  will  blame  him  for  not  wishing  to 
relinquish  oversoon  the  deUcious  pressure  of  her  httle 
hand  on  his  arm  and  to  give  over  this  blind  flower 
of  womanhood  into  another's  char,  e?  He  replied 
disingenuously,  without  quickening  ais  pace: 

"  'Tis  for  your  sake,  madam,  I  am  walking  slowly. 
The  afternoon  is  warm." 

"  I  am  vastly  sensible  of  your  gallantry,  sir,"  she 
retorted.  "But  I  fear  you  must  have  practised  it 
much  on  others  to  have  arrived  at  this  perfection." 

"By  heavens,  madam,"  he  cried,  cut  to  the  heart 
by  her  innocent  raillery,  "'tis  not  so.  Could  you 
but  see  me  you  would  know  it  was  not.  I  am  a  re- 
cluse, a  student,  a  poor  creature  set  apart  from  the 
ways  of  men.  You  are  the  first  woman  that  has 
walked  arm-in-arm  with  me  in  all  my  life  --r  except 
in  dreams.    And  now  my  dream  has  come  true." 

His  voice  vibrated,  and  when  she  answered  hers 
was  responsive. 

"You,  too,  have  your  burden.^" 

"Could  you  but  know  how  your  touch  lightens  it!" 
said  he. 

She  blushed  to  the  brown  hair  that  was  visible 
beneath  the  mob-cap. 

"Are  we  very  far  now  from  my  Aunt  Wother- 
spoon's.^"  she  asked.  Whereupon  Jeremy,  abashed, 
took  refuge  in  the  conmaonplace. 

The  open  gate  through  which  she  had  strayed  was 
reached   all  too   quickly.    When  she  had  passed 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  85 

through  she  made  him  a  cmtsey  and  held  out  her 
hand.  He  touched  it  with  his  lips  as  if  it  were 
sacramental  bread.  She  avowed  herself  much  be- 
holden to  his  kindness. 

"ShaU  I  ever  see  you  again,  Mistress  Barbara.^'" 
he  asked  in  a  low  voice,  for  an  old  servant  was  hob- 
bling down  from  the  house  to  meet  her. 

"My  Aunt  Wotherspoon  is  bed-ridden  and  re- 
ceives no  visitorsr' 

"But  I  could  be  of  no  further  service  to  you.^"^ 
pleaded  Jeremy. 

She  hesitated  and  then  she  said  demurely: 

"It  would  be  a  humane  action,  sir,  to  see  some- 
times that  this  gate  is  shut,  lest  I  stray  through  it 
again  and  drown  myself  in  the  river." 

Jeremy  could  scarce  believe  his  ears. 


IV 

This  was  the  beginning  of  Jeremy's  love-story. 
He  guarded  the  gate  like  Cerberus  or  Saint  Peter. 
Sometimes  at  dawn  he  would  creep  out  of  his  house 
and  tramp  through  the  dew-filled  meadows  to  see 
that  it  was  safely  shut.  During  the  day  he  would  do 
sentry-go  within  sight  of  the  sacred  portal,  and  when 
the  flutter  of  a  mob-cap  and  a  flowered  muslin  met 
his  eye  he  would  advance  merely  to  report  that  the 
owner  ran  no  danger.  And  then,  one  day,  she  bade 
him  open  it,  and  she  came  forth  and  they  walked 
arm-in-arm  in  the  meadows;  and  this  grew  to  be  a 
daily  custom,  to  the  no  small  scandal  of  the  neigh- 
bourhood.   Very  soon,  Jeremy  learned  her  simple 


86  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

history.  She  was  an  orphan,  with  a  small  compe- 
tence of  her  own.  Till  ^recently  she  had  lived  in 
Somersetshire  with  her  guardian;  but  now  he  was 
dead,  and  the  only  home  she  could  turn  to  was  that 
of  her  bed-ridden  Aunt  Wotherspoon,  her  sole 
surviving  relative. 

Jeremy,  with  a  lamentable  lack  of  universality, 
thanked  God  on  his  knees  for  His  great  mercy.  If 
Mistress  Wotherspoon  had  not  been  confined  to  her 
bed  she  would  not  have  allowed  her  niece  to  wander 
at  will  with  a  notorious  scarecrow  over  the  Bulling- 
ford  meadows,  and  if  Barbara  had  not  been  blind  she 
could  not  have  walked  happily  in  his  company  and 
hung  trustfully  on  his  arm.  For  days  she  was  but  a 
wonder  and  a  wild  desire.  Her  beauty,  her  laughter, 
her  wit,  her  simphcity,  her  bravery,  bewildered  him. 
It  was  enough  to  hear  the  music  of  her  voice,  to  feel 
the  fragrance  of  her  presence,  to  thrill  at  her  light 
touch.  He,  Jeremy  Wendover,  from  whose  dis- 
tortion all  human  beings,  his  life  long,  had  turned 
shuddering  away,  to  have  this  iueifable  companion- 
ship !  It  transcended  thought.  At  last  —  it  was 
one  night,  as  he  lay  awake,  remembering  how  they 
had  walked  that  afternoon,  not  arm-in-arm,  but 
hand-in-hand  —  the  amazing,  dazzling  glory  of  a 
possibihty  enveloped  him.  She  was  blind.  She 
could  never  see  his  deformity.  Had  God  listened  to 
his  prayer  and  delivered  this  fair  and  beloved  woman 
into  his  keeping.^  He  shivered  all  night  long  in  an 
ecstasy  of  happiness,  rose  at  dawn  and  mounted 
guard  at  Barbara's  gate.  But  as  he  waited,  food- 
less,  for  the  thrilling  sight  of  her,  depression  came 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  87 

and  sat  heavy  on  his  shoulders  until  he  felt  that  in 
daring  to  think  of  her  in  the  way  of  marriage  he  was 
committing  an  abominable  crime. 

When  she  came,  fresh  as  the  morning,  bareheaded, 
her  beautiful  hair  done  up  in  a  club  behind,  into  the 
Uttle  field,  and  he  tried  to  caU  to  her,  his  tongue  was 
dry  and  he  could  utter  no  sound.  Accidentally  he 
dropped  his  stick,  which  clattered  down  the  bars  of 
the  gate.    She  laughed.    He  entered  the  enclosure. 

"I  knew  I  should  find  you  there,"  she  cried,  and 
sped  toward  him. 

"How  did  you  know?"  he  asked. 

"'By  the  pricking  of  my  thumb,'"  she  quoted 
gaily;  and  then,  as  he  took  both  her  outstretched 
hands,  she  drew  near  him  and  whispered:  "and  by 
the  beating  of  my  heart." 

His  arms  folded  around  her  and  he  held  her  tight 
against  him,  stupefied,  dazed,  throbbing,  vainly 
trying  to  find  words.    At  last  he  said  huskily: 

"  God  has  sent  you  to  be  the  joy  and  comfort  of  a 
sorely  stricken  man.  I  accept  it  because  it  is  His  will. 
I  wiU  cherish  you  as  no  man  has  ever  cherished 
woman  before.  My  love  for  you,  my  dear,  is  as 
infinite  —  as  infinite  —  oh,  God!" 

Speech  failed  him.  He  tore  his  arms  away  from 
her  and  fell  sobbing  at  her  feet  and  kissed  the  skirts 
of  her  gown. 


The  Divine  Mercy,  as  Jeremy  puts  it,  thought  fit 
to  remove  Aunt  Wotherspoon  to  a  happier  world 
before  the  week  was  out;   and  so,  within  a  month, 


88  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Jeremy  led  his  blind  bride  into  the  Httle  Tudor 
house.  And  then  began  for  him  a  happiness  so 
exquisite  that  sometimes  he  was  afraid  to  breathe 
lest  he  should  disturb  the  enchanted  air.  Every 
germ  of  love  and  tenderness  that  had  lain  unde- 
veloped in  his  nature  sprang  into  flower.  Sometimes 
he  grew  afraid  lest,  in  loving  her,  he  was  forgetting 
God.  But  he  reassured  himself  by  a  pretty  sophistry. 
"0  Lord,"  says  he,  "it  is  Thou  only  that  I  worship 
—  through  Thine  own  great  gift."  And  indeed 
what  more  could  be  desired  by  a  reasonable  Deity  .»^ 

Barbara,  responsive,  gave  him  her  love  in  full. 
From  the  first  she  would  hear  nothing  of  his  maimed 
visage. 

"My  dear,"  she  said  as  they  wandered  one  golden 
autumn  day  by  the  riverside,  "  I  have  made  a  picture 
of  you  out  of  your  voice,  the  plash  of  water,  the  sun- 
set and  the  summer  air.  'Twas  thus  that  my  heart 
saw  you  the  first  evening  we  met.  And  that  is  more 
than  sufficing  for  a  poor,  blind  creature  whom  a 
gallant  gentleman  married  out  of  charity." 

"Charity!"  His  voice  rose  in  indignant  repudi- 
ation. 

She  laughed  and  laid  her  head  on  her  shoulder. 

"Ah,  dear,  I  did  but  jest.  I  know  you  fell  in  love 
with  my  pretty  doll's  face.  And  also  with  a  httle 
mocking  spirit  of  my  own." 

"But  what  made  you  faU  in  love  with  me?" 

"Faith,  Mr.  Wendover,"  she  replied,  "a  woman 
with  eyes  in  her  head  has  but  to  go  whither  she  is 
driven.  And  so  much  the  more  a  blind  female  hke 
mfi.    You  led  me  plump  into  the  middle  of  the 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  89 

morass;  and  when  you  came  and  rescued  me  I  was 
silly  enough  to  be  grateful." 

Under  Jeremy's  love  her  rich  nature  expanded  day 
by  day.  She  set  her  joyous  courage  and  her  wit  to 
work  to  laugh  at  blindness,  and  to  make  her  the 
practical,  serviceable  housewife  as  well  as  the  gay 
companion.  The  ancient  crone  was  replaced  by  a 
brisk  servant  and  a  gardener,  and  Jeremy  enjoyed 
creature  comforts  imdreamed  of.  And  the  months 
sped  happily  by.  Autumn  darkened  into  winter 
and  winter  cleared  into  spring,  and  daffodils  and 
crocuses  and  primroses  began  to  show  themselves 
in  comers  of  the  old-world  garden,  and  tiny  gossamer 
garments  in  comers  of  the  dark  old  house.  Then  a 
newer,  deeper  happiness  enfolded  them. 

But  there  came  a  twihght  hour  when,  whispering  of 
the  wonder  that  was  to  come,  she  suddenly  began  to 
cry  softly. 

"But  why,  why,  dear.^"  he  asked  in  tender 
astonishment. 

"Only  —  only  to  think,  Jeremy,  that  I  shall  never 
see  it." 

VI 

One  evening  in  April,  while  Jeremy  was  reading 
and  Barbara  sewing  in  the  httle  candle-Ht  parlour, 
almost  simultaneously  with  a  sudden  downpour  of 
rain  came  a  knock  at  the  front  door.  Jeremy, 
startled  by  this  unwonted  occurrence,  went  himself 
to  answer  the  summons,  and,  opening  the  door,  was 
confronted  by  a  stout,  youngish  man  dressed  in 
black  with  elegant  ruffles  and  a  gold-headed  cane. 


90  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"Your  pardon,  sir,"  said  the  new-comer,  "but  may 
I  crave  a  moment's  shelter  during  this  shower?  I  am 
scarce  equipped  for  the  elements." 

"Pray  enter,"  said  Jeremy  hospitably. 

"I  am  from  London,  and  lodging  at  the  'White 
Hart'  at  BuUingford  for  the  night,"  the  stranger 
explained,  shaking  the  raindrops  from  his  hat. 
"During  a  stroll  before  supper  I  lost  my  way,  and 
this  storm  has  sm-prised  me  at  your  gate.  I  make 
a  thousand  apologies  for  deranging  you." 

"  If  you  are  Wet  the  parlour  fire  will  dry  you.  I 
beg  you,  sir,  to  follow  me,"  said  Jeremy.  He  led  the 
way  through  the  dark  passage  and,  pausing  with  his 
hand  on  the  door-knob,  turned  to  the  stranger  and 
said  with  his  grave  courtesy: 

"I  think  it  right  to  warn  you,  sir,  that  I  am  af- 
flicted with  a  certain  personal  disfigurement  which 
not  all  persons  can  look  upon  with  equanimity." 

"Sir,"  replied  the  other,  "my  name  is  John  Hatta- 
way,  surgeon  at  St.  Thomas'  Hospital  in  London, 
and  I  am  used  to  regard  with  equanimity  all  forms  of 
human  affhction." 

Mr.  Hattaway  was  shown  into  the  parlour  and 
introduced  in  due  form  to  Barbara.  A  chair  was  set 
for  him  near  the  fire.  In  the  talk  that  followed  he 
showed  himself  to  be  a  man  of  parts  and  education. 
He  was  on  his  way,  he  said,  to  Oxford  to  perform  an 
operation  on  the  Warden  of  Merton  College. 

"What  kind  of  operation.^"  asked  Barbara. 

His  quick,  keen  eyes  swept  her  like  a  searchlight. 

"Madam,"  said  he,  not  committing  himself,  "'tis 
but  a  shght  one." 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  91 

But  when  Barbara  had  left  the  room  to  mull  some 
claret  for  her  guest,  Mr.  Hattaway  turned  to  Jeremy. 

"'Tis  a  cataract,"  said  he,  "I  am  about  to  remove 
from  the  eye  of  the  Warden  of  Merton  by  the  new 
operation  invented  by  my  revered  master,  Mr. 
William  Cheselden,  my  immediate  predecessor  at 
St.  Thomas's.  I  did  not  tell  your  wife,  for  certain 
reasons;  but  I  noticed  that  she  is  blinded  by  the 
same  disease." 

Jeremy  rose  from  his  chair. 

"Do  you  mean  that  you  will  restore  the  Warden's 
sight.3" 

"  I  have  every  hope  of  doing  so." 

"But  if  his  sight  can  be  restored  —  then  my 
wife's " 

"Can  be  restored  also,"  said  the  surgeon  com- 
placently. 

Jeremy  sat  down  feeling  faint  and  dizzy. 

"Did  you  not  know  that  cataract  was  curable.^" 

"I  am  scholar  enough,"  answered  Jeremy,  "to 
have  read  that  King  John  of  Aragon  was  so  cured  by 
the  Jew,  Abiathar  of  Lerida,  by  means  of  a  needle 
thrust  through  the  eyeball " 

"Barbarous,  my  dear  sir,  barbarous  1"  cried  the 
surgeon,  raising  a  white,  protesting  hand.  "One  in 
a  milUon  may  be  so  cured.  There  is  even  now  a 
pestilential  fellow  of  a  quack,  calling  himself  the 
Chevalier  Taylor,  who  is  prodding  folks'  eyes  with 
a  six-inch  skewer.  Have  you  never  heard  of 
him.3" 

"  Alas,  sir,"  said  Jeremy,  "  I  live  so  out  of  the  world, 
and  my  daily  converse  is  limited  to  my  dear  wife  and 


92  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

the  parson  hard  by,  who  is  as  recluse  a  scholar  as  I 
am  myself." 

"  If  you  wish  your  wife  to  regain  her  sight,"  said 
Mr.  Hattaway,  "avoid  this  Chevalier  Taylor  like 
the  very  devil.  But  if  you  will  intrust  her  to  my 
care,  Mr.  Hattaway,  surgeon  of  St.  Thomas'  Hospital, 
London,  pupil  of  the  great  Cheselden " 

He  waved  his  hand  by  way  of  completing  the  un- 
finished sentence. 

"When?"  asked  Jeremy,  greatly  agitated. 

"After  her  child  is  bom." 

"Shall  I  tell  her.3"  Jeremy  trembled. 

"As  you  will.  No  —  perhaps  you  had  better 
wait  a  while." 

Then  Barbara  entered,  bearing  a  silver  tray,  with 
the  mulled  claret  and  glasses,  proud  of  her  blind 
surety  of  movement.  Mr.  Hattaway  sprang  to  as- 
sist her  and,  unknown  to  her,  took  the  opportunity 
of  scrutinising  her  eyes.  Then  he  nodded  con- 
fidently at  Jeremy. 

vn 

From  that  evening  Jeremy's  martyrdom  began. 
Hitherto  he  had  regarded  the  blindness  of  his  wife  as 
a  special  dispensation  of  Divine  Providence.  She 
had  not  seen  him  save  on  that  first  afternoon  as  a 
shadowy  mass,  and  had  formed  no  conception  of  his 
disfigurement  beyond  the  vague  impression  con- 
veyed to  her  by  loving  fingers  touching  his  face. 
She  had  made  her  own  m^ital  picture  of  him,  as  she 
had  said,  and  whatever  it  was,  so  far  from  repelling 
her,  it  pleased  her  mightily.    Her  ignorance  indeed 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  93 

was  bliss  —  for  both  of  them.  And  now,  thought 
poor  Jeremy,  knowledge  would  come  with  the  re- 
stored vision,  and,  like  our  too-wise  first  parents, 
they  would  be  driven  out  of  Eden.  Sometimes  the 
devil  entered  his  heart  and  prompted  cowardly 
concealment.  Why  tell  Barbara  of  Mr.  Hattaway's 
proposal?  Why  disturb  a  happiness  already  so 
perfect?  All  her  other  senses  were  eyes  to  her. 
She  had  grown  almost  unconscious  of  her  affliction. 
She  was  happier  loving  him  with  bUnded  eyes  than 
recoiling  from  him  in  horror  with  seeing  ones.  It 
was,  in  sooth,  for  her  own  dear  happiness  that  she 
should  remsdn  in  darkness.  But  then  Jeremy  re- 
membered the  only  cry  her  brave  soul  had  ever 
uttered,  and  after  wresthng  long  in  prayer  he  knew 
that  the  Evil  One  had  spoken,  and  in  the  good,  old- 
fashioned  way  he  bade  Satan  get  behind  him. 
*' Retro  me,  Satanas.''  The  words  are  in  his  diary, 
printed  in  capital  letters. 

But  one  day,  when  she  repeated  her  cry,  his  heart 
ached  for  her  and  he  comforted  her  with  the  golden 
hope.  She  wept  tears  of  joy  and  flung  her  arms 
around  his  neck  and  kissed  him,  and  from  that  day 
forth  filled  the  house  with  song  and  laughter  and 
the  mirth  of  unbounded  happiness.  But  Jeremy, 
though  he  bespoke  her  tenderly  and  hopefully,  felt 
that  he  had  signed  his  death-warrant.  Now  and 
then,  when  her  gay  spirit  danced  through  the  glow- 
ing future,  he  was  tempted  to  say:  "When  you  see 
me  as  I  am  your  love  will  turn  to  loathing  and  our 
heaven  to  hell."  But  he  could  not  find  it  in  his 
heart  to  dash  her  joy.    And  she  never  spoke  of 


94  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

seeing  him  —  only  of  seeing  the  child  and  the  sun 
and  the  flowers  and  the  buttons  of  his  shirts,  which 
she  vowed  must  seem  to  be  sewed  on  by  a  drunken 
cobbler. 

vin 

The  child  was  bom,  a  boy,  strong  and  lusty  —  to 
Jeremy  the  incarnation  of  miraculous  wonder.  That 
the  thing  was  ahve,  with  legs  and  arms  and  feet  and 
hands,  and  could  utter  sounds,  which  it  did  with 
much  vigour,  made  demands  almost  too  great  on  his 
credulity. 

"What  is  he  like.^"  asked  Barbara. 

This  was  a  poser  for  Jeremy.  For  the  pink  brat 
was  hke  nothing  on  earth  —  save  any  other  newborn 
infant. 

"I  think,"  he  said  hesitatingly,  "I  think  he  may 
be  said  to  resemble  Cupid.  He  has  a  mouth  like 
Cupid's  bow." 

"And  Cupid's  wings.^"  she  laughed.  "Fie, 
Jeremy,  I  thought  we  had  bom  to  us  a  Christian 
child." 

"But  that  he  has  a  body,"  said  Jeremy,  "I  should 
say  he  was  a  cherub.  He  has  eyes  of  a  celestial  blue, 
and  his  nose " 

"Yes,  yes,  his  nose.^^"  came  breathlessly  from 
Barbara. 

"I'm  afraid,  my  dear,  there  is  so  httle  of  it  to 
judge  by,"  said  Jeremy. 

"Before  the  summer's  out  I  shaU  be  able  to  judge 
for  myself,"  said  Barbara,  and  terror  gripped  the 
man's  heart. 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  95 

The  days  passed,  and  Barbara  rose  from  her  bed 
and  again  sang  and  laughed. 

"See,  I  am  strong  enough  to  withstand  any  opera- 
tion," she  declared  one  day,  holding  out  the  babe  at 
arm's  length. 

"Not  yet,"  said  Jeremy,  "not  yet.  The  child 
needs  you." 

The  child  was  asleep.  She  felt  with  her  foot  for 
its  cradle,  and  with  marvellous  certainty  deposited 
him  gently  in  the  nest  and  covered  him  with  the 
tiny  coverlet.    Then  she  turned  to  Jeremy. 

"My  husband,  don't  you  wish  me  to  have  my 
sight  restored?" 

"How  can  you  doubt  it?"  he  cried.  "I  would 
have  you  undergo  this  operation  were  my  life  the 
fee." 

She  came  close  to  him  and  put  her  hands  about  his 
maimed  face.  "Dear,"  she  said,  "do  you  think 
anything  could  change  my  love  for  you?" 

It  was  the  first  hint  that  she  had  divined  his  fears; 
but  he  remained  silent,  every  fibre  of  his  being 
shrinking  from  the  monstrous  argument.  For  an- 
swer, he  kissed  her  hands  as  she  withdrew  them. 

At  last  the  time  came  for  the  great  adventure. 
Letters  passed  between  Jeremy  and  Mr.  Hattaway 
of  St.  Thomas'  Hospital,  who  engaged  lodgings  in 
Cork  Street,  so  that  they  should  be  near  his  own 
residence  in  Bond  Street  hard  by.  A  great  travelhng 
chariot  and  post-horses  were  hired  from  Bulling- 
ford,  two  great  horse-pistols,  which  Jeremy  had  never 
fired  off  in  his  life,  were  loaded  and  primed  and  put 
in  the  holsters,  and  one  morning  in  early  August 


96  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Jeremy  and  Barbara  and  the  nurse  and  the  baby 
started  on  their  perilous  journey.  They  lay  at 
Reading  that  night  and  arrived  without  misad- 
venture at  Cork  Street  on  the  following  afternoon. 
Mr.  Hattaway  called  in  the  evening  with  two  lean 
and  solemn  young  men,  his  apprentices  —  for  even 
the  great  Mr.  Hattaway  was  but  a  barber-surgeon 
practising  a  trade  under  the  control  of  a  City  Guild 
—  and  made  his  preparations  for  the  morrow. 

In  these  days  of  anaesthetics  and  cocaine,  sterilised 
instruments,  trained  nurses  and  scientific  ventila- 
tion it  is  almost  impossible  to  realise  the  conditions 
under  which  surgical  operations  were  conducted  in 
the  first  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Yet  they 
occasionally  were  successful,  and  patients  sometimes 
did  survive,  and  nobody  complained,  thinking,  hke 
Barbara  Wendover,  that  all  was  for  the  best  in  this 
best  of  all  possible  worlds.  For,  as  she  lay  in  the 
close,  darkened  room  the  next  day,  after  the  opera- 
tion was  over,  tended  by  a  chattering  beldame  of  a 
midwife,  she  took  the  bmning  pain  in  her  bandaged 
eyes  —  after  the  dare-devil  fashion  of  the  time  Mr. 
Hattaway  had  operated  on  both  at  once  —  as  part 
of  the  cure,  and  thanked  God  she  was  bom  into  so 
marvellous  an  epoch.  Then  Jeremy  came  and  sat 
by  her  bed  and  held  her  hand,  and  she  was  very 
happy. 

But  Jeremy  then,  and  in  the  slow,  torturing  days 
that  followed,  went  about  shrunken  like  a  man 
doomed  to  worse  than  death.  London  increased  his 
agony.  At  first  a  natural  curiosity  (for  he  had 
passed  through  the  town  but  twice  before,  once  as 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  97 

he  set  out  for  the  grand  tour  with  Doctor  Tubbs, 
and  once  on  his  return  thence)  and  a  countryman's 
craving  for  air  took  him  out  into  the  busy  streets. 
But  he  found  the  behaviour  of  the  populace  far  dif- 
ferent from  that  of  the  inhabitants  of  BuUingford, 
who  passed  him  by  respectfully,  though  with  averted 
faces.  Porters  and  lackeys  openly  jeered  at  him, 
ragged  children  siunmoned  their  congeners  and 
followed  hooting  in  his  train;  it  was  a  cruel  age,  and 
elegant  gentlemen  in  flowered  silk  coats  and  lace 
ruffles  had  no  compunction  in  holding  their  cambric 
handkerchiefs  before  their  eyes  and  vowing  within  his 
hearing  that,  stab  their  vitals,  such  a  feUow  should 
wear  a  mask  or  be  put  into  the  Royal  Society's 
Museum;  and  in  St.  James's  Street  one  fine  lady, 
stepping  out  of  her  sedan-chair  almost  into  his  arms, 
feU  back  shrieking  that  she  had  seen  a  monster,  and 
pretended  to  faint  as  the  obsequious  staymaker  ran 
out  of  his  shop  to  her  assistance. 

He  ceased  to  go  abroad  in  daylight  and  only 
crept  about  the  streets  at  night,  even  then  nervously 
avoiding  the  glare  of  a  chance-met  linkboy's  torch. 
Desperate  thoughts  came  to  him  during  these  gloomy 
rambles.  Fear  of  God  alone,  as  is  evident  from  the 
diary,  prevented  him  from  taking  his  life.  And  the 
poor  wretch  prayed  for  he  knew  not  what. 


IX 

One  morning  Mr.  Hattaway,  after  his  examina- 
tion of  the  patient,  entered  the  parlour  where 
Jeremy  was  reading  Tillotsori's  Sermons  (there  were 


98  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

the  foiirleen  volumes  of  them  in  the  room's  imlively 
bookcase)  and  closed  the  door  behind  him  with  an 
air  of  importance. 

"Sir,"  said  he,  "I  bring  you  good  news." 

Jeremy  closed  his  book. 

"She  sees?" 

"On  removing  the  bandages  just  now,"  replied 
Mr.  Hattaway,  "I  perceived  to  my  great  regret 
that  with  the  left  eye  my  skill  has  been  unavailing. 
The  failure  is  due,  I  beheve,  to  an  injury  to  the 
retina  which  I  have  been  unable  to  discover."  He 
paused  and  took  snuff.  "But  I  rejoice  to  inform 
you  that  sight  is  restored  to  the  right  eye.  I  ad- 
mitted Hght  into  the  room,  and  though  the  vision 
is  diffused,  which  a  lens  will  rectify,  she  saw  me 
distinctly." 

"Thank  God  she  has  the  blessing  of  sight,"  said 
Jeremy  reverently.  ' 

"Amen,"  said  the  surgeon.  He  took  another 
pinch.  "Also,  perhaps,  thank  your  humble  serv- 
ant for  restoring  it." 

"I  owe  you  an  unpayable  debt,"  replied  Jeremy. 

"She  is  crying  out  for  the  baby,"  said  Mr.  Hatta- 
way. "If  you  will  kindly  send  it  in  to  her  I  can 
allow  her  a  fleeting  glimpse  of  it  before  I  complete 
the  rebandaging  for  the  day." 

Jeremy  rang  the  bell  and  gave  the  order.  "And 
I?"  he  inquired  bravely. 

The  surgeon  hesitated  and  scratched  his  plump 
cheek. 

"You  know  that  my  wife  has  never  seen  me." 

"To-morrow,  then,"  said  Hattaway. 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  99 

The  nurse  and  child  appeared  at  the  doorway,  and 
the  surgeon  followed  them  mto  Barbara's  room. 

When  the  surgeon  had  left  the  house  Jeremy  went 
to  Barbara  and  found  her  crooning  over  the  babe, 
which  lay  in  her  arms. 

"I've  seen  him,  dear,  I've  seen  him!"  she  cried 
joyously.  "He  is  the  most  wonderfully  beautiful 
thing  on  the  earth.  His  eyes  are  hght  blue,  and 
mine  are  dark,  so  he  must  have  yours.  And  his 
mouth  is  made  for  kisses,  and  his  expression  is  that 
of  a  babe  bom  in  Paradise." 

Jeremy  bent  over  and  looked  at  the  boy,  who 
sniggered  at  him  in  a  most  unparadisiacal  fashion, 
and  they  talked  parentwise  over  his  perfections. 

"Before  we  go  back  to  Bulhngford  you  will  let  me 
take  a  coach,  Jeremy,  and  drive  about  the  streets 
and  show  him  to  the  town?  I  will  hold  him  up  and 
cry:  'Ladies  and  gentlemen,  look!  'Tis  the  tenth 
wonder  of  the  world.  You  only  have  this  one 
chance  of  seeing  him.'" 

She  rattled  on  in  the  gayest  of  moods,  making  him 
laugh  in  spite  of  the  terror.  The  failure  of  the 
operation  in  the  left  eye  she  put  aside  as  of  no  ac- 
coimt.  One  eye  was  a  necessity,  but  two  were  a 
mere  luxiuyr. 

"And  it  is  the  little  rogue  that  will  reap  the 
benefit,"  she  cried,  cuddhng  the  child.  "For,  when 
he  is  naughty  mammy  will  turn  the  blind  side  of  her 
face  to  him." 

"And  will  you  turn  the  blind  side  of  your  face  to 
me?''  asked  Jeremy  with  a  quiver  of  the  hps. 

She  took  his  hand  and  pressed  it  against  her  cheek. 


100  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"You  have  no  faults,  my  beloved  husband,  for  me 
to  be  blind  to,"  she  said,  wilfully  or  not  misxmder- 
standing  him. 

Such  rapture  had  the  sight  of  the  child  given  her 
that  she  insisted  on  its  lying  with  her  that  night,  a 
truckle-bed  being  placed  in  the  room  for  the  child's 
nurse.  When  Jeremy  took  leave  of  her  before  going 
to  his  own  room  he  bent  over  her  and  whispered: 

"To-morrow." 

Her  sweet  lips  —  pathetically  sweet  below  the 
bandage  —  parted  in  a  smile  —  and  they  never 
seemed  sweeter  to  the  anguished  man  —  and  she 
also  whispered,  "To-morrow!"  and  kissed  him. 

He  went  away,  and  as  he  closed  the  door  he  felt 
that  it  was  the  gate  of  Paradise  shut  against  him  for 
ever. 

He  did  not  sleep  that  night,  but  spent  it  as  a  brave 
man  spends  the  night  before  his  execution.  For, 
after  all,  Jeremy  Wendover  was  a  gallant  gentlemen. 

In  the  morning  he  went  into  Barbara's  room  before 
breakfast,  as  his  custom  was,  and  found  her  still 
gay  and  bubbling  over  with  the  joy  of  hfe.  And 
when  he  was  leaving  her  she  stretched  out  her  hands 
and  clasped  his  maimed  face,  as  she  had  done  once 
before,  and  said  the  same  reassuring  words.  Nothing 
could  shake  her  immense,  her  steadfast  love.  But 
Jeremy,  entering  the  parlour  and  catching  sight  of 
himself  in  the  Queen  Anne  mirror  over  the  mantle- 
piece,  shuddered  to  the  inmost  roots  of  his  being. 
She  had  no  conception  of  what  she  vowed. 

He  was  scarce  through  breakfast  when  Mr.  Hatta- 
way  entered,  a  full  hour  before  his  usual  time. 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  101 

"I  am  in  a  prodigious  hurry,"  said  he,  "for  I  must 
go  post-haste  into  Norfolk,  to  operate  on  my  Lord 
Winteringham  for  the  stone.  I  have  not  a  moment 
to  lose,  so  I  pray  you  to  accompany  me  to  your  wife's 
bedchamber." 

The  awful  moment  had  come.  Jeremy  courte- 
ously opened  doors  for  the  surgeon  to  pass  through, 
and  followed  with  death  in  his  heart.  When  they 
entered  the  room  he  noticed  that  Barbara  had  caused 
the  nurse's  truckle-bed  to  be  removed  and  that  she 
was  lying,  demure  as  a  nun,  in  a  newly  made  bed. 
The  surgeon  flung  the  black  curtains  from  the  win- 
dow and  let  the  summer  hght  filter  through  the 
linen  bhnds. 

"We  will  have  a  longer  exposure  this  morning," 
said  he,  "and  to-morrow  a  Httle  longer  still,  and  so 
on  until  we  can  face  the  daylight  altogether.  Now, 
madam,  if  you  please." 

He  busied  himself  with  the  bandages.  Jeremy,  on 
the  other  side  of  the  bed,  stood  clasping  Barbara's 
hand:  stood  stock-still,  with  thumping  heart,  hold- 
ing his  breath,  setting  his  teeth,  nerving  himself  for 
the  sharp,  instinctive  gasp,  the  reflex  recoil,  that  he 
knew  would  be  the  death  sentence  of  their  love. 
And  at  that  supreme  moment  he  cursed  himself 
bitterly  for  a  fool  for  not  having  told  her  of  his  terror, 
for  not  having  suflBciently  prepared  her  for  the  dev- 
astating revelation.    But  now  it  was  too  late. 

The  bandages  were  removed.  The  surgeon  bent 
down  and  peered  into  the  eyes.  He  started  back  in 
dismay.  Before  her  right  eye  he  rapidly  waved  his 
finger. 


102  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"Do  you  see  that?" 

"No,"  said  Barbara. 

"My  God,  madam!"  cried  he,  with  a  stricken 
look  on  his  plump  face,  "what  in  the  devil's  name 
have  you  been  doing  with  yourself?" 

Great  drops  of  sweat  stood  on  Jeremy's  brow. 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked. 

"She  can't  see.  The  eye  is  injured.  Yesterday, 
save  for  the  crystalline  lens  which  I  extracted,  it 
ivas  as  sound  as  mine  or  yours." 

"I  was  afraid  something  had  happened,"  said 
Barbara  in  a  matter-of-fact  tone.  "Baby  was 
restive  in  the  night  and  pushed  his  httle  fist  into  my 
eye." 

"Good  heavens,  madam!"  exclaimed  the  angry 
surgeon,  "you  don't  mean  to  say  that  you  took  a 
young  baby  to  sleep  with  you  in  your  condi- 
tion?" 

Barbara  nodded,  as  if  found  out  in  a  trifling  pecca- 
dillo. "I  suppose  I'm  blind  for  ever?"  she  asked 
casually. 

He  examined  the  eye  again.  There  was  a  mo- 
ment's dead  silence.  Jeremy,  white-hpped  and  hag- 
gard, hung  on  the  verdict.  Then  Hattaway  rose, 
extended  his  arms  and  let  them  drop  helplessly 
against  his  sides. 

"Yes,"  said  he.     "The  sight  is  gone." 

Jeremy  put  his  hands  to  his  head,  staggered,  and, 
overcome  by  the  reaction  from  the  terror  and  the 
shock  of  the  unlooked-for  calamity,  fell  in  a  faint  on 
the  floor. 

After  he  had  recovered  and  the  surgeon  had  gone, 


AN  OLD-WORLD  EPISODE  103 

promising  to  send  his  apprentice  the  next  day  to 
dress  the  eyes,  which,  for  fear  of  inflammation,  still 
needed  tending,  Jeremy  sat  by  his  wife's  bedside 
with  an  aching  heart. 

"'Tis  the  will  of  God,"  said  he  gloomily.  "We 
must  not  rebel  against  His  decrees." 

"But,  you  dear,  foolish  husband,"  she  cried,  half 
laughing,  "who  wants  to  rebel  against  them.^  Not 
I,  of  a  certainty.  I  am  the  happiest  woman  in 
the  world." 

"'Tis  but  to  comfort  me  that  you  say  it,"  said 
Jeremy. 

"'Tis  the  truth.  Listen."  She  sought  for  his 
hand  and  continued  with  sweet  seriousness:  "I  was 
selfish  to  want  to  regain  my  sight;  but  my  soul 
hungered  to  see  my  babe.  And  now  that  I  have  seen 
him  I  care  not.  Just  that  one  httle  peep  into  the 
heaven  of  his  face  was.  all  I  w£inted.  And  'twas  the 
darling  wretch  himself  who  settled  that  I  should  not 
have  more."  After  a  little  she  said,  "Come  nearer 
to  me,"  and  she  drew  his  ear  to  her  hps  and 
whispered: 

"Although  I  have  not  regained  my  sight,  on  the 
other  hand  I  have  not  lost  a  thing  far  dearer  —  the 
face  that  I  love  which  I  made  up  of  your  voice  and 
the  plash  of  water  and  the  sunset  and  the  summer 
air."  She  kissed  him.  "My  poor  husband,  how 
you  must  have  suffered!" 

And  then  Jeremy  knew  the  great,  brave  soul  of  that 
woman  whom  the  Almighty  had  given  him  to  wife, 
and,  as  he  puts  it  in  his  diary,  he  did  glorify  God 
exceedingly. 


104  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

So  when  Barbara  was  able  to  travel  again  Jeremy 
sent  for  the  great,  roomy  chariot  and  the  horse- 
pistols  and  the  post-horses,  and  they  went  back  to 
Bullingford,  where  they  spent  the  remainder  of  their 
lives  in  unclouded  felicity. 


II 

THE  CONQUEROR      ' 

MISS  WINIFRED  GOODE  sat  in  her  garden 
in  the  shade  of  a  clipped  yew,  an  unopened 
novel  on  her  lap,  and  looked  at  the  gabled 
front  of  the  Tudor  house  that  was  hers  and  had  been 
her  family's  for  many  generations.  In  that  house, 
Duns  Hall,  in  that  room  beneath  the  southernmost 
gable,  she  had  been  bom.  From  that  house,  save  for 
casual  absences  rarely  exceeding  a  month  in  duration, 
she  had  never  stirred.  All  the  drama,  such  as  it  was, 
of  her  life  had  been  played  in  that  house,  in  that 
garden.  Up  and  down  the  parapeted  stone  terrace 
walked  the  ghosts  of  aU  those  who  had  been  dear  to 
her  —  her  father,  a  vague  but  cherished  memory;  a 
brother  and  a  sister  who  had  died  during  her  child- 
hood; her  mother,  dead  three  years  since,  to  whose 
invahd  and  somewhat  selfish  needs  she  had  devoted 
aU  her  full  young  womanhood.  Another  ghost 
walked  there,  too;  but  that  was  the  ghost  of  the 
Uving  —  a  yoimg  man  who  had  kissed  and  ridden 
away,  twenty  years  ago.  He  had  kissed  her  over 
there,  imder  the  old  wistaria  arbour  at  the  end  of 
the  terrace.  What  particular  meaning  he  had  put 
into  the  kiss,  loverly,  brotherly,  cousinly,  friendly  — 

105 


106  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

for  they  had  played  together  all  their  young  lives, 
and  were  distantly  connected  —  she  had  never  been 
able  to  determine.  In  spite  of  his  joy  at  leaving  the 
lethargic  country  town  of  Dunsfield  for  America, 
their  parting  had  been  sad  and  sentimental.  The 
kiss,  at  any  rate,  had  been,  on  his  side,  one  of  sincere 
affection  —  an  affection  proven  afterwards  by  a 
correspondence  of  twenty  years.  To  her  the  kiss 
had  been  —  well,  the  one  and  only  kiss  of  her  life, 
and  she  had  treasured  it  in  a  neat  little  sacred 
casket  in  her  heart.  Since  that  far-off  day  no  man 
had  ever  showed  an  inclination  to  kiss  her,  which,  in 
one  way,  was  strange,  as  she  had  been  pretty  and 
gentle  and  laughter-loving,  quahties  attractive  to 
youths  in  search  of  a  mate.  But  in  another  way  it 
was  not  strange,  as  mate-seeking  youths  are  rare  as 
angels  in  Dunsfield,  beyond  whose  limits  Miss 
Goode  had  seldom  strayed.  Her  romance  had  been 
one  kiss,  the  girlish  dreams  of  one  man.  At  first, 
when  he  had  gone  fortune-hunting  in  America,  she 
had  fancied  herseff  broken-hearted;  but  Time  had 
soon  touched  her  with  healing  fingers.  Of  late, 
freed  from  the  slavery  of  a  querulous  bedside,  she 
had  grown  in  love  with  her  unruffled  and  delicately 
ordered  existence,  in  which  the  only  irregular  things 
were  her  herbaceous  borders,  between  which  she 
walked  like  a  prim  school-mistress  among  a  crowd 
of  bright  but  unruly  children.  She  had  asked 
nothing  more  from  life  than  what  she  had  —  her 
little  duties  in  the  parish,  her  httle  pleasures  in  the 
neighbourhood,  her  good  health,  her  old  house, 
her  trim  lawns,  her  old-fashioned  garden,  her  black 


THE  CONQUEROR  107 

cocker  spaniels.  As  it  was  at  forty,  she  thought,  so 
should  it  be  till  the  day  of  her  death. 

But  a  month  ago  had  come  turmoil.  Roger  Orme 
announced  his  return.  Fortune-making  in  America 
had  tired  him.  He  was  coming  home  to  settle  down 
for  good  in  Dunsfield,  in  the  house  of  his  fathers. 
This  was  Duns  Lodge,  whose  forty  acres  marched 
with  the  two  hundred  acres  of  Duns  Hall.  The  two 
places  were  known  in  the  district  as  "The  Lodge" 
and  "The  Hall."  About  a  century  since,  a  yoimger 
son  of  The  Hall  had  married  a  daughter  of  The 
Lodge,  whence  the  remote  tie  of  consanguinity  be- 
tween Winifred  Goode  and  Roger  Orme.  The  Lodge 
had  been  let  on  lease  for  many  years,  but  now  the 
lease  had  fallen  in  and  the  tenants  gone.  Roger 
had  arrived  in  England  yesterday.  A  telegram  had 
bidden  her  expect  him  that  afternoon.  She  sat  in 
the  garden  expecting  him,  and  stared  wistfully  at  the 
old  grey  house,  a  curious  fear  in  her  eyes. 

Perhaps,  if  freakish  chance  had  not  brought  Mrs. 
Donovan  to  Dimsfield  on  a  visit  to  the  Rector,  a 
day  or  two  after  Roger's  letter,  fear  —  foolish, 
shameful,  sickening  fear  —  might  not  have  had  so 
dominant  a  place  in  her  anticipation  of  his  home- 
coming. Mrs.  Donovan  was  a  contemporary,  a 
Dunsfield  girl,  who  had  married  at  nineteen  and  gone 
out  with  her  husband  to  India.  Winifred  Goode  re- 
membered a  gipsy  beauty  riotous  in  the  bloom  of 
youth.  In  the  Rector's  drawing-room  she  met  a 
grey-haired,  yellow-skinned,  shrivelled  caricature,  and 
she  looked  in  the  woman's  face  as  in  a  mirror  of 
awful  truth  in  which  she  herself  was  reflected.    From 


108  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

that  moment  she  had  known  no  peace.  Gone  was 
her  placid  acceptance  of  the  footprints  of  the  years, 
gone  her  old-maidish  pride  in  dainty,  old-maidish 
dress.  She  had  mixed  httle  with  the  modem  world, 
and  held  to  old-fashioned  prejudices  which  prescribed 
the  outward  demeanour  appropriate  to  each  decade. 
One  of  her  earhest  memories  was  a  homely  saying  of 
her  father's  —  which  had  puzzled  her  childish  mind 
considerably  —  as  to  the  absurdity  of  sheep  being 
dressed  lamb  fashion.  Later  she  understood  and 
cordially  agreed  with  the  dictum.  The  Countess  of 
Ingleswood,  the  personage  of  those  latitudes,  at  the 
age  of  fifty  showed  the  fluffy  golden  hair  and  peach- 
bloom  cheeks  and  supple  figure  of  twenty;  she  wore 
bright  colours  and  dashing  hats,  and  danced  and 
flirted  and  kept  a  tame-cattery  of  adoring  young 
men.  Winifred  visited  with  Lady  Ingleswood  be- 
cause she  believed  that,  in  these  democratic  days,  it 
was  the  duty  of  county  families  to  outmatch  the 
proletariat  in  sofidarity;  but,  with  every  protest  of 
her  gentlewoman's  soul,  she  disapproved  of  Lady 
Ingleswood.  Yet  now,  to  her  appalling  dismay,  she 
saw  that,  with  the  aid  of  paint,  powder,  and  peroxide. 
Lady  Ingleswood  had  managed  to  keep  young.  For 
thirty  years,  to  Winifred's  certain  knowledge,  she 
had  not  altered.  The  blasting  hand  that  had 
swept  over  Madge  Donovan's  face  had  passed  her 
by. 

Winifred  envied  the  woman's  power  of  attraction. 
She  read,  with  a  curious  interest,  hitherto  disre- 
garded advertisements.  They  were  so  alluring,  they 
seemed  so  convincing.    Such  a  cosmetic  used  by 


THE  CONQUEROR  109 

queens  of  song  and  beauty  restored  the  roses  of 
girlhood;  under  such  a  treatment,  wrinkles  disap- 
peared within  a  week  —  there  were  the  photographs 
to  prove  it.  All  over  London  bubbled  fountains  of 
youth,  at  a  mere  guinea  or  so  a  dip.  She  sent  for  a 
little  battery  of  washes  and  powders,  and,  when  it 
arrived,  she  locked  herself  in  her  bedroom.  But  the 
sight  of  the  first  unaccustomed  —  and  unskillfully 
applied  —  dab  of  rouge  on  her  cheek  terrified  her. 
She  realised  what  she  was  doing.  No  I  Ten  thou- 
sand times  no!  Her  old-maidishness,  her  pm-itanism 
revolted.  She  flew  to  her  hand-basin  and  vigor- 
ously washed  the  offending  bloom  away  with  soap 
and  water.  She  would  appear  before  the  man  she 
loved  just  as  she  was  —  if  need  be,  in  the  withered 
truth  of  a  Madge  Donovan.  .  .  .  And,  after  all,  had 
her  beauty  faded  so  utterly .^^  Her  glass  said  "No." 
But  her  glass  mocked  her,  for  how  could  she  conjure 
up  the  young  face  of  twenty  which  Roger  Orme 
carried  in  his  mind,  and  compare  it  with  the  present 
image  .'^ 

She  sat  in  the  garden,  this  blazing  July  afternoon, 
waiting  for  him,  her  heart  beating  with  the  love  of 
years  ago,  and  the  shrinking  fear  in  her  eyes.  Pres- 
ently she  heard  the  sound  of  wheels,  and  she  saw  the 
open  fly  of  "The  Red  Lion"  —  Dunsfield's  chief 
hotel  —  crawling  up  the  drive,  and  in  it  was  a  man 
wearing  a  straw  hat.  She  fluttered  a  timid  hand- 
kerchief, but  the  ma^i,  not  looking  in  her  direction, 
did  not  respond.  She  cros  led  the  lawn  to  the  terrace, 
feeling  hurt,  and  entered  the  drawing  room  by  the 
open  French  window  and  stood  ther  ,  her  back  to 


110  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

the  Kght.  Soon  he  was  announced.  She  went 
forward  to  meet  him. 

"My  dear  Roger,  welcome  home." 

He  laughed  and  shook  her  hand  in  a  hearty  grip. 

"It's  you,  Winifred.^  How  good!  Are  you  glad 
to  see  me  back.^" 

"Very  glad." 

"And  I." 

"Do  you  find  things  changed.^" 

"Nothing,"  he  declared  with  a  smile;  "the 
house  is  just  the  same."  He  ran  his  fingers  over  the 
comer  of  a  Louis  XVI  table  near  which  he  was 
standing.  "I  remember  this  table,  in  this  exact 
spot,  twenty  years  ago." 

"And  you  have  scarcely  altered.  I  should  have 
known  you  anywhere." 

"  I  should  just  hope  so,"  said  he. 

She  realised,  with  a  queer  Httle  pang,  that  time 
had  improved  the  appearance  of  the  man  of  forty- 
five.  He  was  tall,  strong,  erect;  few  accusing 
lines  marked  his  clean-shaven,  florid,  clear-cut  face; 
in  his  curly  brown  hair  she  could  not  detect  a  touch 
of  grey.  He  had  a  new  air  of  mastery  and  success 
which  expressed  itself  in  the  comers  of  his  firm  lips 
and  the  steady,  humorous  gleam  in  his  eyes. 

"You  must  be  tired  after  your  hot  train  journey," 
she  said. 

He  laughed  again.  "  Tired  .^  After  a  couple  of 
hours?    Now,  if  it  had  been  a  couple  of  days,  as  we 

are  accustomed  to  on  the  other  side But  go  on 

talking,  just  to  let  me  keep  on  hearing  your  voice. 
It's  yours  —  I  could  have  recognised  it  over  a  long- 


THE  CONQUEROR  111 

distance  telephone  —  and  it's  English.  You've  no 
idea  how  dehcious  it  is.  And  the  smell  of  the  room" 
—  he  drew  in  a  deep  breath  —  "is  you  and  the 
EngKsh  country.     I  tell  you,  it's  good  to  be  back!" 

She  flushed,  his  pleasure  was  so  sincere,  and  she 
smiled. 

"But  why  should  we  stand.^  Let  me  take  your 
hat  and  stick." 

"Why  shouldn't  we  sit  in  the  garden  —  after  my 
hot  and  tiring  journey.^"  They  both  laughed.  "Is 
the  old  wistaria  still  there,  at  the  end  of  the  ter- 
race?" 

She  turned  her  face  away.  "Yes,  still  there.  Do 
you  remember  it?"  she  asked  in  a  low  voice. 

"Do  you  think  I  could  forget  it?  I  remember 
every  turn  of  the  house." 

"Let  us  go  outside,  then." 

She  led  the  way,  and  he  followed,  to  the  trelHs 
arbour,  a  few  steps  from  the  drawing-room  door. 
The  long  Hlac  blooms  had  gone  with  the  spring,  but 
the  luxuriant  summer  leafage  cast  a  grateful  shade. 
Roger  Orme  sat  in  a  wicker  chair  and  fanned  himself 
with  his  straw  hat. 

"Delightful!"  he  said.  "And  I  smell  stocks!  It 
does  carry  me  back.  I  wonder  if  I  have  been  away 
at  all." 

"I'm  afraid  you  have,"  said  Winifred  —  "for 
twenty  years." 

"Well,  I'm  not  going  away  again.  I've  had  my 
share  of  work.  And  what's  the  good  of  work  just  to 
make  money?  I've  made  enough.  I  sold  out  before 
I  left." 


112  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"But  in  your  letters  you  always  said  you  liked 
America." 

"So  I  did.  It's  the  only  country  in  the  world  for 
the  young  and  eager.  If  I  had  been  bom  there,  I 
should  have  no  use  for  Dunsfield.  But  a  man  bom 
and  bred  among  old,  sleepy  things  has  the  nostalgia 
of  old,  sleepy  things  in  his  blood.  Now  tell  me  about 
the  sleepy  old  things.     I  want  to  hear." 

"I  think  I  have  written  to  you  about  everything 
that  ever  happened  in  Dimsfield,"  she  said. 

But  still  there  were  gaps  to  be  bridged  in  the  tale 
of  births  and  marriages  and  deaths,  the  main  chron- 
icles of  the  neighbourhood.  He  had  a  surprising 
memory,  and  plucked  obscure  creatures  from  the  past 
whom  even  Winifred  had  forgotten. 

"It's  almost  miraculous  how  you  remember." 

"It's  a  faculty  I've  had  to  cultivate,"  said  he. 

They  talked  about  his  immediate  plans.  He  was 
going  to  put  The  Lodge  into  thorough  repair,  bring 
everything  up-to-date,  lay  in  electric  hght  and  a 
central  heating  installation,  fix  bathrooms  wherever 
bathrooms  would  go,  and  find  a  place  somewhere  for 
a  biUiard-room.  His  suj:Teyor  had  aheady  made  his 
report,  and  was  to  meet  him  at  the  house  the  follow- 
ing morning.  As  for  decorations,  curtaining,  carpet- 
ing, and  such-like  aesthetic  aspects,  he  was  counting 
on  Winifred's  assistance.  He  thought  that  blues  and 
browns  would  harmonise  with  the  oak-panelling  in 
the  dining-room.  Until  the  house  was  ready,  his 
headquarters  would  be  "The  Red  Lion." 

"You  see,  I'm  going  to  begin  right  now,"  said  he. 

She  admired  his  vitahty,  his  certainty  of  accom- 


THE  CONQUEROR  113 

plishment.  The  Hall  was  still  lit  by  lamps  and 
candles;  and  although,  on  her  return  from  a  visit,  she 
had  often  deplored  the  absence  of  electric  Ught,  she 
had  shnuik  from  the  strain  and  worry  of  an  innova- 
tion. And  here  was  Roger  turning  the  whole  house 
inside  out  more  cheerfully  than  she  would  turn 
out  a  drawer. 

"You'll  help  me,  won't  you.^"  he  asked.  " I  want 
a  home  with  a  touch  of  the  woman  in  it;  I've  lived  so 
long  in  masculine  stiffness." 

"You  know  that  I  should  love  to  do  anything  I 
could,  Roger,"  she  rephed  happily. 

He  remarked  again  that  it  was  good  to  be  back. 
No  more  letters  —  they  were  unsatisfactory,  after 
aU.  He  hoped  she  had  not  resented  his  business 
man's  hahit  of  typewriting.  This  was  in  the  year 
of  grace  eighteen  hundred  and  ninety-two,  and,  save 
for  Roger's  letters,  typewritten  documents  came  as 
seldom  as  judgment  summonses  to  Duns  Hall. 

"We  go  ahead  in  America,"  said  he. 

"'The  old  order  changeth,  yielding  place  to  new.' 
I  accept  it,"  she  said  with  a  smile. 

"What  I've  longed  for  in  Dunsfield,"  he  said,  "is 
the  old  order  that  doesn't  change.  I  don't  beheve 
anything  has  changed." 

She  plucked  up  her  coijrage.  Now  she  would  chal- 
lenge him  —  get  it  over  at  once.  She  would  watch 
his  lips  as  he  answered. 

"I'm  afraid  I  must  have  changed,  Roger." 

"In  what  way?" 

"I  am  no  longer  twenty." 

"Your  voice  is  just  the  same." 


114  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Shocked,  she  put  up  her  deUcate  hands.  "Don't 
—  it  hurts!" 

"What?" 

"You  needn't  have  put  it  that  way  —  you  might 
have  told  a  pohte  lie." 

He  rose,  turned  aside,  holding  the  back  of  the 
wicker  chair. 

"  I've  got  something  to  tell  you,"  he  said  abruptly. 
"  You  would  have  to  find  out  soon,  so  you  may  as  well 
know  now.  But  don't  be  alarmed  or  concerned.  I 
cjui't  see  your  face." 

"What  do  you  mean?" 

"I've  been  stone  blind  for  fifteen  years." 

"Bhnd?" 

She  sat  for  some  moments  paralysed.  It  was  in- 
conceivable. This  man  was  so  strong,  so  alive,  so 
masterful,  with  the  bright  face  and  keen,  humorous 
eyes  —  and  blind  I  A  trivial  undercurrent  of  thought 
ran  subconsciously  beneath  her  horror.  She  had 
wondered  why  he  had  insisted  on  sounds  and  scents, 
why  he  had  kept  his  stick  in  his  hand,  why  he  had 
touched  things  —  tables,  window  jambs,  chairs  — 
now  she  knew.  Roger  went  on  talking,  and  she 
heard  him  in  a  dream.  He  had  not  informed  her 
when  he  was  stricken,  because  he  had  wished  to 
spare  her  unnecessary  anxiety.  Also,  he  was  proud, 
perhaps  hard,  and  resented  sympathy.  He  had 
made  up  his  mind  to  win  through  in  spite  of  his  af- 
fliction. For  some  years  it  had  been  the  absorbing 
passion  of  his  life.  He  had  won  through  like  many 
another,  and,  as  the  irreparable  detachment  of  the 
retina  had  not  disfigured  his  eyes,  it  was  his  joy  to 


THE  CONQUEROR  115 

go  through  the  world  like  a  seeing  man,  hiding  his 
blindness  from  the  casual  observer.  By  dictated 
letter  he  could  never  have  made  her  understand  how 
trifling  a  matter  it  was. 

"And  I've  deceived  even  you!"  he  laughed. 

Tears  had  been  rolling  down  her  cheeks.  At  his 
laugh  she  gave  way.  An  answering  choke,  hysterical, 
filled  her  throat,  and  she  burst  into  a  fit  of  sobbing. 
He  laid  his  hand  tenderly  on  her  head. 

"  My  dear,  don't.  I  am  the  happiest  man  alive. 
And,  as  for  eyes,  I'm  rich  enough  to  buy  a  hundred 
pairs.     I'm  a  perfect  Argus!" 

But  Winifred  Goode  wept  uncontrollably.  There 
was  deep  pity  for  him  in  her  heart,  but  —  never  to  be 
revealed  to  mortal  —  there  was  also  horrible,  tre- 
rifying  joy.  She  gripped  her  hands  and  sobbed 
frantically  to  keep  herself  from  laughter.  A  woman's 
sense  of  humour  is  often  cruel,  only  to  be  awakened 
by  tragic  incongruities.  She  had  passed  through 
her  month's  agony  and  shame  for  a  blind  man. 

At  last  she  mastered  herself.  "Forgive  me,  dear 
Roger.  It  was  a  dreadful  shock.  Blindness  has 
always  been  to  me  too  awful  for  thought  —  like  being 
buried  ahve." 

"Not  a  bit  of  it,"  he  said  cheerily.  "I've  run  a 
successful  business  in  the  dark  —  real  estate  —  buy- 
ing and  selling  and  developing  land,  you  know  —  a 
thing  which  requires  a  man  to  keep  a  sharp  look-out, 
and  which  he  couldn't  do  if  he  were  buried  ahve. 
It's  a  confounded  nuisance,  I  admit,  but  so  is  gout. 
Not  half  as  irritating  as  the  position  of  a  man  I  once 
knew  who  had  both  hands  cut  off." 


116  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

She  shivered.    "That's  horrible." 

"It  is,"  said  he,  "but  blindness  isn't." 

The  maid  appeared  with  the  tea-tray,  which  she 
put  on  a  rustic  table.  It  was  then  that  Winifred 
noticed  the  httle  proud  awkwardness  of  the  blind 
man.  There  was  pathos  in  his  insistent  disregard 
of  his  affliction.  The  imperfectly  cut  lower  half  of  a 
watercress  sandwich  fell  on  his  coat  and  stayed  there. 
She  longed  to  pick  it  off,  but  did  not  dare,  for  fear  of 
hinting  him.  He  began  to  talk  again  of  the  house  — 
the  scheme  of  decoration. 

"Oh,  it  aU  seems  so  sad!"  she  cried. 

"What?" 

"You'll  not  be  able  to  see  the  beautiful  things." 

"Good  Heavens,"  he  retorted,  "do  you  think  I 
am  quite  devoid  of  imagination.^  And  do  you  sup- 
pose no  one  will  enter  the  house  but  myself.^" 

"I  never  thought  of  that,"  she  admitted. 

"As  for  the  interior,  I've  got  the  plan  in  my  head, 
and  could  walk  about  it  now  blindfold,  only  that's 
unnecessary;  and  when  it's  all  fixed  up,  I'll  have  a 
ground  model  made  of  every  room,  showing  every 
piece  of  furniture,  so  that,  when  I  get  in,  I'll  know  the 
size,  shape,  colour,  quaUty  of  every  blessed  thing  in 
the  house.    You  see  if  I  don't." 

"  These  gifts  are  a  merciful  dispensation  of  Provi- 
dence." 

"Maybe,"  said  he  drily.  "Only  they  were  about 
the  size  of  bacteria  when  I  started,  and  it  took  me 
years  of  incessant  toil  to  develop  them." 

He  asked  to  be  shown  around  the  garden.  She 
took  him  up  the  gravelled  walks  beside  her  gay 


THE  CONQUEROR  117 

borders  and  her  roses,  telling  him  the  names  and 
varieties  of  the  flowers.  Once  he  stopped  and 
frowned. 

"I've  lost  my  bearings.  We  ought  to  be  passing 
imder  the  shade  of  the  old  walnut  tree." 

"You  are  quite  right,"  she  said,  marvelling  at  his 
accuracy.  "It  stood  a  few  steps  back,  but  it  was 
blown  clean  down  three  years  ago.  It  had  been 
dead  for  a  long  time." 

He  chuckled  as  he  stroUed  on.  "There's  nothing 
makes  me  so  mad  as  to  be  mistaken." 

Some  time  later,  on  their  return  to  the  terrace,  he 
held  out  his  hand. 

"But  you'U  stay  for  dinner,  Roger,"  she  exclaimed. 
"I  can't  bear  to  think  of  you  spending  your  first 
evening  at  home  in  that  awful  'Red  Lion. ' " 

"That's  very  dear  of  you,  Winnie,"  he  said,  evi- 
dently touched  by  the  softness  in  her  voice.  "I'll 
dine  with  pleasure,  but  I  must  get  off  some  letters 
first.  I'U  come  back.  You've  no  objection  to  my 
bringing  my  man  with  me?" 

"Why,  of  course  not."  She  laid  her  hand  lightly 
on  his  arm.  "Oh,  Roger,  dear,  I  wish  I  could  tell 
you  how  sorry  I  am,  how  my  heart  aches  for  you!" 

"Don't  worry,"  he  said  —  "don't  worry  a  Httle 
bit,  and,  if  you  really  want  to  help  me,  never  let  me 
feel  that  you  notice  I'm  blind.    Forget  it,  as  I  do." 

"I'll  try,"  she  said. 

"That's  right."  He  held  her  hand  for  a  second 
or  two,  kissed  it,  and  dropped  it,  abruptly.  "God 
bless  youl"  said  he.  "It's  good  to  be  with  you 
again." 


118  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

When  he  was  gone,  Winifred  Goode  returned  to 
her  seat  by  the  clipped  yew  and  cried  a  little,  after 
the  manner  of  women.  And,  after  the  manner  of 
women,  she  dreamed  dreams  oblivious  of  the  flight 
of  time  till  her  maid  came  out  and  hurried  her 
indoors. 

She  dressed  with  elaborate  care,  in  her  best  and 
costhest,  and  wore  more  jewels  than  she  would  have 
done  had  her  guest  been  of  normal  sight,  feeling 
oddly  shaken  by  the  thought  of  his  intense  imagina- 
tive vision.    In  trying  to  fasten  the  diamond  clasp 
of  a  velvet  band  round  her  neck,  her  fingers  trembled 
so  much  that  the  maid  came  to  her  assistance.    Her 
mind  was  in  a  whirl.   Roger  had  left  her  a  headstrong, 
dissatisfied  boy.    He  had  returned,   the  romantic 
figure  of  a  conqueror,  all  .the  more  romantic  and 
conquering  by  reason  of  his  triumph  over  the  powers 
of  darkness.     In  his  deep  affection  she  knew  her 
place  was  secure.    The  few  hours  she  had  passed 
with  him  had  shown  her  that  he  was  a  man  trained 
in  the  significance  not  only  of  words,  but  also  of  his 
attitude  towards  individual  men  and  women.    He 
would  not  have  said  "God  bless  you!"  unless  he 
meant  it.    She  appreciated  to  the  full  his  mascuhne 
strength;  she  took  to  her  heart  his  masculine  tender- 
ness; she  had  a  woman's  pity  for  his  affliction;  she 
felt  unregenerate  exultancy  at  the  undetected  crime 
of  lost  beauty,  and  yet  she  feared  him  on  account  of 
the  vanished  sense.    She  loved  him  with  a  passion- 
ate recrudescence  of  girhsh  sentiment;  but  the  very 
thing  that  might  have,  that  ought  to  have,  that  she 
felt  it  indecent  not  to  have,  inflamed  all  her  woman's 


THE  CONQUEROR  119 

soul  and  thrown  her  reckless  into  his  arms,  raised 
between  them  an  impalpable  barrier  against  which 
she  dreaded  lest  she  might  be  dashed  and  bruised. 

At  dinner  this  feeling  was  intensified.  Roger  made 
little  or  no  allusion  to  his  blindness;  he  talked  with 
the  ease  of  the  cultivated  man  of  the  world.  He  had 
humour,  gaiety,  charm.  As  a  mere  companion,  she 
had  rarely  met,  during  her  long  seclusion,  a  man  so 
instinctive  in  sympathy,  so  quick  in  diverting  talk 
into  a  channel  of  interest.  In  a  few  flashing  yet 
subtle  questions,  he  learned  what  she  wore.  The 
diamond  clasp  to  the  black  velvet  band  he  recog- 
nized as  having  been  her  mother's.  He  compli- 
mented her  delicately  on  her  appearance,  as  though 
he  saw  her  clearly,  in  the  adorable  twilight  beauty 
that  was  really  hers.  There  were  moments  when  it 
seemed  impossible  that  he  should  be  blind.  But 
behind  his  chair,  silent,  impassive,  arresting,  freezing, 
hovered  his  Chinese  body-servant,  capped,  pig-tailed, 
loosely  clad  in  white,  a  creature  as  unreal  in  Dunsfield 
as  gnome  or  merman,  who,  with  the  unobtrusive- 
ness  of  a  shadow  from  another  world,  served,  in  the 
mechanics  of  the  meal,  as  an  accepted,  disregarded, 
and  unnoticed  pair  of  eyes  for  his  master.  The  noble 
Tudor  dining-room,  with  its  great  carved  oak  chim- 
ney-piece, its  stately  gilt-framed  portraits,  its  Jaco- 
bean sideboards  and  presses,  all  in  the  gloom  of  the 
spent  illumination  of  the  candles  on  the  daintily-set 
table,  familiar  to  her  from  her  earhest  childhood, 
part  of  her  conception  of  the  cosmos,  part  of  her 
very  self,  seemed  metamorphosed  into  the  unreal, 
the  phantasmagoric,  by  the  presence  of  this  white- 


120  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

clad,  exotic  figure  —  not  a  man,  but  an  eerie  em- 
bodiment of  the  sense  of  sight. 

Her  reason  told  her  that  the  Chinese  servant  was 
but  an  ordinary  serving-man,  performing  minutely 
specified  duties  for  a  generous  wage.  But  the  duties 
were  performed  magically,  hke  conjuror's  tricks.  It 
was  practically  impossible  to  say  who  cut  up  Roger's 
meat,  who  helped  him  to  salt  or  to  vegetables,  who 
guided  his  hand  unerringly  to  the  wine  glass.  So 
abnormally  exquisite  was  the  co-ordination  between 
the  two,  that  Roger  seemed  to  have  the  man  under 
mesmeric  control.  The  idea  bordered  on  the  mon- 
strous. Winifred  shivered  through  the  dinner,  in 
spite  of  Roger's  bright  talk,  and  gratefully  welcomed 
the  change  of  the  drawing-room,  whither  the  white- 
vestured  automaton  did  not  follow. 

"Will  you  do  me  a  favour,  Winnie?"  he  asked 
during  the  evening.  "Meet  me  at  The  Lodge  to- 
morrow at  eleven,  and  help  me  interview  these 
building  people.  Then  you  can  have  a  finger  in  the 
pie  from  the  very  start." 

She  said  somewhat  tremulously:  "Why  do  you 
want  me  to  have  a  finger  in  the  pie.^" 

"Good  Heavens,"  he  cried,  "aren't  you  the  only 
human  creature  in  this  country  I  care  a  straw  about  .^ " 

"Is  that  true,  Roger.^" 

"Sure,"  said  he.  After  a  Httle  span  of  silence  he 
laughed.  "People  on  this  side  don't  say  'sure.' 
That's  sheer  American." 

"I  like  it,"  said  Winifred. 

When  he  parted  from  her,  he  again  kissed  her  hand 
and  again  said:    "God  bless  you!"    She  accom- 


THE  CONQUEROR  121 

panied  him  to  the  hall,  where  the  Chinaman,  ghostly 
in  the  dimness,  was  awaiting  him  with  hat  and  coat. 
Suddenly  she  felt  that  she  abhorred  the  Chinaman. 

That  night  she  slept  but  Kttle,  striving  to  analyse 
her  feelings.  Of  one  fact  only  did  the  dawn  bring 
certainty  —  that,  for  all  her  love  of  him,  for  all  his 
charm,  for  all  his  tenderness  towards  her,  during 
dinner  she  had  feared  him  horribly. 

She  saw  him  the  next  morning  in  a  new  and  yet 
oddly  familiar  phase.  He  was  attended  by  his 
secretary,  a  pallid  man  with  a  pencil,  note-book,  and 
documents,  for  ever  at  his  elbow,  ghostly,  automatic, 
during  their  wanderings  with  the  surveyor  through 
the  bare  and  desolate  old  house. 

She  saw  the  master  of  men  at  work,  acciu'ate  in 
every  detail  of  a  comprehensive  scheme,  abrupt,  im- 
perious, denying  difficulties  with  harsh  impatience. 
He  leaned  over  his  secretary  and  pointed  to  portions 
of  the  report  just  as  though  he  could  read  them,  and 
ordered  their  modification. 

"Mr.  Withers,"  he  said  once  to  the  surveyor,  who 
was  raising  objections,  "I  always  get  what  I  want 
because  I  make  dead  sure  that  what  I  want  is  attain-, 
able.  I'm  not  an  idealist.  If  I  say  a  thing  is  to  be 
done,  it  has  got  to  be  done,  and  it's  up  to  you  or  to 
someone  else  to  do  it." 

They  went  through  the  house  from  furnace  to 
garret,  the  palHd  secretary  ever  at  Roger's  elbow, 
ever  rendering  him  imperceptible  services,  ever 
identifying  himself  with  the  sightless  man,  mys- 
teriously following  his  thoughts,  co-ordinating  his 
iiKiividuality  with  that  of  his  master.    He  was  less 


122  FAR-WAY  STORIES 

a  man  than  a  trained  faculty,  like  the  Chinese 
servant.  And  again  Winifred  shivered  and  felt 
afraid. 

More  and  more  during  the  weeks  that  followed, 
did  she  realize  the  iron  will  and  irresistible  force  of 
the  man  she  loved.  He  seemed  to  lay  a  relentless 
grip  on  all  those  with  whom  he  came  in  contact  and 
compel  them  to  the  expression  of  himself.  Only 
towards  her  was  he  gentle  and  considerate.  Many 
times  she  accompanied  him  to  London  to  the  great 
shops,  the  self-effacing  secretary  shadow-like  at  his 
elbow,  and  discussed  with  him  colours  and  materials, 
and  he  listened  to  her  with  affectionate  deference. 
She  often  noticed  that  the  secretary  translated  into 
other  terms  her  description  of  things.  This  ir- 
ritated her,  and  once  she  suggested  leaving  the 
secretary  behind.  Surely,  she  urged,  she  could  do 
all  that  was  necessary.    He  shook  his  head. 

" No,  my  dear,"  he  said  very  kindly.  "Jukes  sees 
for  me.  I  shouldn't  like  you  to  see  for  me  in  the  way 
Jukes  does." 

She  was  the  only  person  from  whom  he  would  take 
advice  or  suggestion,  and  she  rendered  him  great 
service  in  the  tasteful  equipment  of  the  house  and  in 
the  engagement  of  a  staff  of  servants.  So  free  a  hand 
did  he  allow  her  in  certedn  directions,  so  obviously  and 
deliberately  did  he  withdraw  from  her  sphere  of 
operations,  that  she  was  puzzled.  It  was  not  until 
later,  when  she  knew  him  better,  that  the  picture 
vaguely  occurred  to  her  of  him  caressing  her  tenderly 
with  one  hand,  and  holding  the  rest  of  the  world  by 
the  throat  with  the  other. 


THE  CONQUEROR  123 

On  the  day  when  he  took  up  his  residence  in  the 
new  home,  they  walked  together  through  the  rooms. 
In  high  spirits,  boyishly  elated,' he  gave  her  an  ex- 
hibition of  his  marvellous  gifts  of  memory,  minutely 
describing  each  bit  of  furniture  and  its  position  in 
every  room,  the  colour  scheme,  the  textm-e  of  cm*- 
tains,  the  pictures  on  the  walls,  the  knick-knacks  on 
mantlepieces  and  tables.  And  when  he  had  done, 
he  put  his  arm  round  her  shoulders. 

"But  for  you,  Winnie,"  said  he,  "this  would  be 
the  dreariest  possible  kind  of  place;  but  the  spirit 
of  you  pervades  it  and  makes  it  a  fragrant  paradise." 

The  words  and  tone  were  lover-hke,  and  so  was  his 
clasp.  She  felt  very  near  him,  very  happy,  and  her 
heart  throbbed  quickly.  She  was  ready  to  give  her 
life  to  him. 

"You  are  making  me  a  proud  woman,"  she  mur- 
mured. 

He  patted  her  shoulder  and  laughed  as  he  released 
her. 

"  I  only  say  what's  true,  my  dear,"  he  replied,  and 
then  abruptly  skipped  from  sentiment  to  practical 
talk. 

Winifred  had  a  touch  of  dismay  and  disappoint- 
ment. Tears  started,  which  she  wiped  away  fur- 
tively. She  had  made  up  her  mind  to  accept  him, 
in  spite  of  Wang  Fu  and  Mr.  Jukes,  if  he  should 
make  her  a  proposal  of  marriage.  She  had  been 
certain  that  the  moment  had  come.  But  he  made 
no  proposal. 

She  waited.  She  waited  a  long  time.  In  the 
meanwhile,  she  continued  to  be  Roger's  intimate 


124  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

friend  and  eageriy-sought  companion.  One  day  his 
highly-paid  and  efficient  housekeeper  came  to  consult 
her.  The  woman  desired  to  give  notice.  Her  place 
was  too  difficult.  She  could  scarcely  believe  the 
master  was  blind.  He  saw  too  much,  he  demanded 
too  much.  She  could  say  nothing  exphcit,  save  that 
she  was  frightened.  She  wept,  after  the  nature  of 
upset  housekeepers.  Winifred  soothed  her  and  ad- 
vised her  not  to  throw  up  so  lucrative  a  post,  and, 
as  soon  as  she  had  an  opportunity,  she  spoke  to 
Roger.    He  laughed  his  usual  careless  laugh. 

"They  all  begin  that  way  with  me,  but  after  a 
while  they're  broken  in.  You  did  quite  right  to  tell 
Mrs.  Strode  to  stay." 

And  after  a  few  months  Winifred  saw  a  change  in 
Mrs.  Strode,  and  not  only  in  Mrs.  Strode,  but  in  all 
the  servants  whom  she  had  engaged.  They  worked 
the  household  like  parts  of  a  flawless  machine.  They 
grew  to  be  imperceptible,  shadowy,  automatic,  like 
Wang  Fu  and  Mr.  Jukes. 


The  months  passed  and  melted  into  years.  Roger 
Orme  became  a  great  personage  in  the  neighbourhood. 
He  interested  himself  in  local  aifairs,  served  on  the 
urban  district  council  and  on  boards  innumerable. 
They  made  him  Mayor  of  Dunsfield.  He  subscribed 
largely  to  charities  and  entertained  on  a  sumptuous 
scale.  He  ruled  the  little  world,  setting  a  ruthless 
heel  on  proud  necks  and  making  the  humble  his  in- 
struments. Mr.  Jukes  died,  and  other  secretaries 
came,  and  those  who  were  not  instantly  dismissed 


THE  CONQUEROR  125 

grew  to  be  like  Mr.  Jukes.  In  the  course  -of  time 
Roger  entered  Parliament  as  member  for  the  division. 
He  became  a  force  in  poHtics,  in  public  affairs.  In 
the  appointment  of  Royal  Commissions,  committees 
of  inquiry,  his  name  was  the  first  to  occur  to  min- 
isters, and  he  was  invariably  respected,  dreaded, 
and  hated  by  his  colleagues. 

"Why  do  you  work  so  hard,  Roger .3"  Winifred 
would  ask. 

He  would  say,  with  one  of  his  laughs:  "Because 
there's  a  dynamo  in  me  that  I  can't  stop." 

And  all  these  years  Miss  Winifred  Goode  stayed  at 
Duns  HaU,  leading  her  secluded,  lavender-scented 
life  when  Roger  was  in  London,  and  playing  hostess 
for  him,  with  diffident  graciousnesS,  when  he  en- 
tertained at  The  Lodge.  His  attitude  towards  her 
never  varied,  his  need  of  her  never  lessened. 

He  never  asked  her  to  be  his  wife.  At  first  she 
wondered,  pined  a  little,  and  then,  like  a  brave, 
proud  woman,  put  the  matter  behind  her.  But  she 
knew  that  she  counted  for  much  in  his  strange  ex- 
istence, and  the  knowledge  comforted  her.  And  as 
the  years  went  on,  and  all  the  lingering  shreds  of 
youth  left  her,  and  she  grew  gracefully  into  the  old 
lady,  she  came  to  regard  her  association  with  him  as  a 
spiritual  marriage. 

Then,  after  twenty  years,  the  dynamo  wore  out  the 
fragile  tenement  of  flesh.  Roger  Orme,  at  sixty-five, 
broke  down  and  lay  on  his  death-bed.  One  day  he 
sent  for  Miss  V.  inifred  Goode. 

She  entered  the  sick-room,  a  woman  of  sixty, 
A.hite-haired,  wrinkled,  with  only  the  beauty  of  a 


126  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

serene  step  across  the  threshold  of  old  age.  He  bade 
the  nurse  leave  them  alone,  and  put  out  his  hand  and 
held  hers  as  she  sat  beside  the  bed. 

"What  kind  of  a  day  is  it,  Winnie?" 

"As  if  you  didn't  know!  You've  been  told,  I'm 
sure,  twenty  times." 

"What  does  it  matter  what  other  people  say.**  I 
want  to  get  at  the  day  through  you." 

"  It's  bright  and  sunny  —  a  perfect  day  of  early 
summer." 

"  What  things  are  out.3 " 

"The  may  and  the  laburnum  and  the  Ulac " 

"And  the  wistaria?" 

"Yes,  the  wistaria." 

"  It's  forty  years  ago,  dear,  and  your  voice  is  just 
the  same.  And  to  me  you  have  always  been  the 
same.  I  can  see  you  as  you  sit  there,  with  your  dear, 
sensitive  face,  the  creamy  cheek,  in  which  the  blood 
comes  and  goes  —  oh,  Heavens,  so  different  from 
the  blowsy,  hard-featured  girls  nowadays,  who  could 

not  blush  if — well — well 1  know  'em,  although 

I'm  blind  —  I'm  Argus,  you  know,  dear.  Yes,  I  can 
see  you,  with  your  soft,  brown  eyes  and  pale  brown 
hair  waved  over  your  pure  brow.  There  is  a  fascinat- 
ing little  kink  on  the  left-hand  side.  Let  me  feel 
it." 

She  drew  her  head  away,  frightened.  Then 
suddenly  she  remembered,  with  a  pang  of  thankful- 
ness, that  the  queer  httle  kink  had  defied  the  years, 
though  the  pale  brown  hair  was  white.  She  guided 
his  hand  and  he  felt  the  kink,  and  he  laughed  in  his 
old,  exultant  way. 


THE  CONQUEROR  127 

"Don't  you  think  I'm  a  miracle,  Winnie?" 

"You're  the  most  wonderful  man  living,"  she 
said. 

"I  shan't  be  living  long.  No,  my  dear,  don't 
talk  platitudes.  I  know.  I'm  busted.  And  I'm 
glad  I'm  going  before  I  begin  to  dodder.  A  seeing 
dodderer  is  bad  enough,  but  a  blind  dodderer's 
only  fit  for  the  grave.  I've  lived  my  life.  I've 
proved  to  this  stupendous  clot  of  ignorance  that  is 
humanity  that  a  blind  man  can  guide  them  wherever 
he  likes.  You  know  I  refused  a  knighthood.  Any 
tradesman  can  buy  a  knighthood  —  the  only  knight- 
hoods that  count  are  those  that  are  given  to  artists 
and  writers  and  men  of  science  —  aiid,  if  I  could  live, 
I'd  raise  hell  over  the  matter,  and  make  a  differentia- 
tion in  the  titles  of  honour  between  the  great  man  and 
the  rascally  cheesemonger " 

"My  dear,"  said  Miss  Winifred  Goode,  "don't 
get  so  excited." 

"  I'm  only  saying,  Winnie,  that  I  refused  a  knight- 
hood. But  —  what  I  haven't  told  you,  what  I'm 
supposed  to  keep  a  dead  secret  —  if  I  could  Uve  a 
few  weeks  longer,  and  I  shan't,  I  should  be  a  Privy 
Councillor  —  a  thing  worth  being.  I've  had  the 
official  intimation  —  a  thing  that  can't  be  bought. 
Heavens,  if  I  were  a  younger  man,  and  there  were 
the  life  in  me,  I  should  be  the  Prime  Minister  of  this 
country  —  the  first  great  blind  ruler  that  ever  was  in 
the  world.  Think  of  it!  But  I  don't  want  anything 
now.  I'm  done.  I'm  glad.  The  whole  caboodle  is 
but  leather  and  prunella.  There  is  only  one  thing 
in  the  world  that  is  of  any  importance." 


128  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"What  is  that,  dear?"  she  asked  quite  innocently, 
accustomed  to,  but  never  familiar  with,  his  vehement 
paradox. 

"  Love,"  said  he. 

He  gripped  her  hand  hard.  There  passed  a  few 
seconds  of  tense  silence. 

"  Winnie,  dear,"  he  said  at  last,  "will  you  kiss  me.^  " 

She  bent  forward,  and  he  put  his  arm  round  her 
neck  and  drew  her  to  him.  They  kissed  each  other 
on  the  lips. 

"  It's  forty  years  since  I  kissed  you,  dear  —  that 
day  under  the  wistaria.  And,  now  I'm  dying,  I  can 
tell  you.  I've  loved  you  aU  the  time,  Winnie.  I'm 
a  tough  nut,  as  you  know,  and  whatever  I  do  I  do 
intensely.    I've  loved  you  intensely,  furiously." 

She  turned  her  head  away,  unable  to  bear  the 
living  look  in  the  sightless  eyes. 

"Why  did  you  never  tell  me.^"  she  asked  in  a  low 
voice. 

"Would  you  have  married  me.^" 

"You  know  I  would,  Roger." 

"At  first  I  vowed  I  would  say  nothing,"  he  said, 
after  a  pause,  "until  I  had  a  fit  home  to  offer  you. 
Then  the  blindness  came,  and  I  vowed  I  wouldn't 
speak  until  I  had  conquered  the  helplessness  of  my 
affliction.    Do  you  understand?" 

"  Yes,  but  when  you  came  home  a  conqueror " 

"  I  loved  you  too  much  to  marry  you.  You  were 
far  too  dear  and  precious  to  come  into  the  intimacy 
of  my  life.  Haven't  you  seen  what  happened  to  all 
those  who  did?"  He  raised  his  old  knotted  hands, 
clenched  tightly.     "  I  squeezed  them  dry.    I  couldn't 


THE  CONQUEROR  129 

help  it.  My  blindness  made  me  a  coward.  It  has 
been  hell.  The  darkness  never  ceased  to  frighten  me. 
I  lied  when  I  said  it  didn't  matter.  I  stretched  out 
my  hands  like  tentacles  and  gripped  everyone  within 
reach  in  a  kind  of  madness  of  self-preservation.  I 
made  them  give  up  their  souls  and  senses  to  me.  It 
was  some  ghastly  hypnotic  power  I  seemed  to  have. 
When  I  had  got  them,  they  lost  voHtion,  individual- 
ity. They  were  about  as  much  Uving  creatures  to 
me  as  my  arm  or  my  foot.    Don't  you  see?" 

The  white-haired  woman  looked  at  the  old  face 
working  passionately,  and  she  felt  once  more  the 
deadly  fear  of  him. 

"But  with  me  it  would  have  been  different,"  she 
faltered.    "You  say  you  loved  me." 

"That's  the  devil  of  it,  my  sweet,  beautiful  Winnie 
—  it  wouldn't  have  been  different.  I  should  have 
squeezed  you,  too,  reduced  you  to  the  helpless  thing 
that  did  my  bidding,  sucked  your  life's  blood  from 
you.  I  couldn't  have  resisted.  So  I  kept  you  away. 
Have  I  ever  asked  you  to  use  your  eyes  for  me?" 

Her  memory  travelled  down  the  years,  and  she  was 
amazed.  She  remembered  Mr.  Jukes  at  the  great 
shops  and  many  similar  incidents  that  had  puzzled 
her. 

"No,"  she  said. 

There  was  a  short  silence.  The  muscles  of  his 
face  relaxed,  and  the  old,  sweet  smile  came  over  it. 
He  reached  again  for  her  hand  and  carressed  it 
tenderly. 

"By  putting  you  out  of  my  life,  I  kept  you,  dear. 
I  kept  you  as  the  one  beautiful  human  thing  I  had. 


130  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Every  hour  of  happiness  I  have  had  for  the  last 
twenty  years  has  come  through  you." 

She  said  tearfully:  "You  have  been  very  good  to 
me,  Roger." 

"It's  a  queer  mix-up,  isn't  it?"  he  said,  after  a 
pause.  "Most  people  would  say  that  I've  ruined 
your  life.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  me,  you  might  have 
married." 

"No,  dear,"  she  replied.  "I've  had  a  very  full 
and  happy  Hfe."- 

The  nurse  came  into  the  room  to  signify  the  end  of 
the  visit,  and  found  them  hand  in  hand  like  lovers. 
He  laughed. 

"Nurse,"  said  he,  "you  see  a  dying  but  a  jolly 
happy  old  man!" 

Two  days  afterwards  Roger  Orme  died.  On  the 
afternoon  of  the  funeral.  Miss  Winifred  Goode  sat  in 
the  old  garden  in  the  shade  of  the  clipped  yew,  and 
looked  at  the  house  in  which  she  had  been  bom,  and 
in  which  she  had  passed  her  sixty  years  of  life,  and  at 
the  old  wistaria  beneath  which  he  had  kissed  her 
forty  years  ago.    She  smiled  and  murmured  aloud : 

"No,  I  would  not  have  had  a  single  thing  dif- 
ferent." 


Ill 

A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA 

HOW  are  you  feeling  now?" 
Words   could   not   express   the  music  of 
these  six  hquid  syllables  that  fell  through 
the  stillness  and  the  blackness  on  my  ears. 

"Not  very  bright,  I'm  afraid,  nurse,"  said  I. 

Think  of  something  to  do  with  streams  and  moon- 
light, and  you  may  have  an  idea  of  the  mellow  ripple 
of  the  laugh  I  heard. 

"I'm  not  the  mirse.  Can't  you  tell  the  diflference? 
I'm  Miss  Deane  —  Dr.  Deane's  daughter." 

"Deane.^"  I  echoed. 

"Don't  you  know  where  you  are?" 

"Everything  is  still  confused,"  said  I. 

I  had  an  idea  that  they  had  carried  me  somewhere 
by  train  and  put  me  into  a  bed,  and  that  soft-fingered 
people  had  tended  my  eyes;  but  where  I  was  I  neither 
knew  nor  cared.  Torture  and  blindness  had  been 
quite  enough  to  occupy  my  mind. 

"You  are  at  Dr.  Deane's  house,"  said  the  voice, 
"and  Dr.  Deane  is  the  twin  brother  of  Mr.  Deane,  the 
great  oculist  of  Grandchester,  who  was  smnmoned  to 
Shepton-Marling  when  you  met  with  your  accident. 
Perhaps  you  know  you  had  a  gim  accident?" 

131 


132  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"I  suppose  it  was  only  that  after  all,"  said  I,  "but 
it  felt  like  the  disruption  of  the  solar  system." 

"Are  you  still  in  great  pain?"  my  luiseen  hostess 
asked  sympathetically. 

"Not  since  you  have  been  in  the  room.  I  mean," 
I  added,  chilled  by  a  span  of  silence,  "I  mean  —  I 
am  just  stating  what  happens  to  be  a  fact." 

"Oh!"  she  said  shortly.  "Well,  my  uncle  found 
that  you  couldn't  be  properly  treated  at  your  friend's 
httle  place  at  Shepton-Marling,  so  he  brought  you  to 
Grandchester  —  and  here  you  are." 

"But  I  don't  understand,"  said  I,  "why  I  should 
be  a  guest  in  your  house." 

"You  are  not  a  guest,"  she  laughed.    "You  are 
here  on  the  most  sordid  and  commercial  footing. 
Your    friend  —  I    forget    his    name " 

"  Mobray,"  said  I. 

"  Mr.  Mobray  settled  it  with  my  uncle.  You  see 
the  house  is  large  and  father's  practice  small,  as  we 
keep  a  nursing  home  for  my  uncle's  patients.  Of 
course  we  have  trained  nurses." 

"Are  you  one.^"  I  asked. 

"  Not  exactly.  I  do  the  housekeeping.  But  I 
can  settle  those  uncomfortable  pillows." 

I  felt  her  dexterous  cool  hands  about  my  head  and 
neck.  For  a  moment  or  two  my  eyes  ceased  to  ache, 
and  I  wished  I  could  see  her.  In  tendering  my 
thanks,  I  expressed  the  wish.  She  laughed  her  de- 
licious laugh. 

"  If  you  could  see  you  wouldn't  be  here,  and  there- 
fore you  couldn't  see  me  anyhow." 

"Shall  I  ever  see  you.^"  I  asked  dismally. 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  133 

"Why,  of  course  1  Don't  you  know  that  Henry 
Deane  is  one  of  the  greatest  oculists  in  England?" 

We  discussed  my  case  and  the  miraculous  skill  of 
Henry  Deane.  Presently  she  left  me,  promising  to 
return.  The  tones  of  her  voice  seemed  to  linger,  as 
perfume  would,  in  the  darkness. 

That  was  the  beguming  of  it.  It  was  love,  not  at 
first  sight,  but  at  first  sound.  Pain  and  anxiety  stood 
like  abashed  goblins  at  the  back  of  my  mind.  Valerie 
Deane's  voice  danced  in  front  like  a  triumphant 
fairy.  When  she  came  and  talked  sick-room  plati- 
tudes I  had  sooner  listened  to  her  than  to  the  music  of 
the  spheres.  At  that  early  stage  what  she  said 
mattered  so  little.  I  would  have  given  rapturous 
heed  to  her  reading  of  logarithmic  tables.  I  asked 
her  siUy  questions  merely  to  elicit  the  witchery  of 
her  voice.  When  Melba  sings,  do  you  take  count  of 
the  idiot  words?  You  close  eyes  and  intellect  and 
just  let  the  divine  notes  melt  into  your  soul.  And 
when  you  are  lying  on  your  back,  blind  and  helpless, 
as  I  was,  your  soul  is  a  very  sponge  for  anything 
beautiful  that  can  reach  it.  After  a  while  she  gave 
me  glimpses  of  herself,  sweet  and  womanly;  and 
we  drifted  from  conunonplace  into  deeper  things. 
She  was  the  perfect  companion.  We  discussed  all 
topics,  from  chiffons  to  Schopenhauer.  Like  most 
women,  she  execrated  Schopenhauer.  She  must  have 
devoted  much  of  her  time  to  me;  yet  I  ungratefully 
complained  of  the  long  intervals  between  her  visits. 
But  oh!  those  interminable  idle  hours  of  darkness,  in 
which  all  the  thoughts  that  had  ever  been  thought 
were  rethought  over  and  over  again  until  the  mind 


134  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

became  a  worn-out  rag-bag!  Only  those  who  have 
been  through  the  valley  of  this  shadow  can  know  its 
desolation.  Only  they  can  understand  the  magic  of 
the  unbeheld  Valerie  Deane. 

"What  is  the  meaning  of  this?"  she  asked  one 
morning.    "  Nurse  says  you  are  fretful  and  fractious." 

"She  insisted  on  soaping  the  soles  of  my  feet  and 
tickling  me  into  torments,  which  made  me  frac- 
tious, and  I'm  dying  to  see  your  face,  which  makes 
me  fretful." 

"Since  when  have  you  been  dying .!^"  she  asked. 

"  From  the  first  moment  I  heard  your  voice  saying, 
'How  are  you  feeling  now?'  It's  irritating  to  have 
a  friend  and  not  in  the  leeist  know  what  she  is  like. 
Besides,"  I  added,  "your  voice  is  so  beautiful  that 
your  face  must  be  the  same." 

She  laughed. 

"Your  face  is  like  your  laugh,"  I  declared. 

"If  my  face  were  my  fortune  I  should  come  off 
badly,"  she  said  in  a  Hght  tone.  I  think  she  was 
leaning  over  the  foot-rail,  and  I  longed  for  her  nearer 
presence. 

"  Nurse  has  tied  this  bandage  a  little  too  tightly," 
I  said  mendaciously. 

I  heard  her  move,  and  in  a  moment  her  fingers 
were  busy  about  my  eyes.  I  put  up  my  hand  and 
touched  them.    She  patted  my  hand  away. 

"Please  don't  be  fooKsh,"  she. remarked.  "When 
you  recover  your  sight  and  find  what  an  exceedingly 
plain  girl  I  am,  you'll  go  away  like  the  others,  and 
never  want  to  see  me  again." 

"What  others?"  I  exclaimed. 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  135 

"Do  you  suppose  you're  the  only  patient  I  have 
had  to  manage?" 

I  loathed  "the  others"  with  a  horrible  detestation; 
but  I  said,  after  reflection: 

"Tell  me  about  yourself.  I  know  you  are  called 
Valerie  from  Dr.  Deane.    How  old  are  you.»^" 

She  pinned  the  bandage  in  front  of  my  fore- 
head. 

"Oh,  I'm  young  enough,"  she  answered  with  a 
laugh.  "  Three-and- twenty.  And  I'm  five-foot- 
four,  and  I  haven't  a  bad  figure.  But  I  haven't  any 
good  looks  at  all,  at  aU." 

"Tell  me,"  said  I  impatiently,  "exactly  how  you 
do  look.     I  must  know." 

"  I  have  a  sallow  complexion.  Not  very  good  skin. 
And  a  low  forehead." 

"An  excellent  thing,"  said  I. 

"But  my  eyebrows  and  hair  nm  in  straight 
parallel  fines,  so  it  isn't,"  she  retorted.  "It  is  very 
ugly.    I  have  thin  black  hair." 

"Let  me  feel." 

"Certainly  not.  And  my  eyes  are  a  sort  of 
watery  china  blue  and  much  too  small.  And  my 
nose  isn't  a  bad  nose  altogether,  but  it's  fleshy. 
One  of  those  nondescript,  unaristocratic  noses  that 
always  looks  as  if  it  has  got  a  cold.  My  mouth  is 
large  —  I  am  looking  at  myself  in  the  glass  —  my 
my  teeth  are  white.  Yes,  they  are  nice  and  white. 
But  they  are  large  and  protrude  —  you  know  the 
French  caricature  of  an  Engfishwoman's  teeth. 
Reafiy,  now  I  consider  the  question,  I  am  the  image 
of  the  Engfish  mees  in  a  French  comic  paper." 


136  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"  I  don't  believe  it,"  I  declared. 

"It  is  true.  I  know  I  have  a  pretty  voice  —  but 
that  is  all.  It  deceives  blind  people.  They  think 
I  must  be  pretty  too,  and  when  they  see  me  —  bon 
soir,  la  compagnie!  And  I've  such  a  thin,  miserable 
face,  coming  to  the  chin  in  a  point,  like  a  kite. 
There!    Have  you  a  clear  idea  of  me  now? " 

"No,"  said  I,  "for  I  believe  you  are  wilfully  mis- 
representing yourself.  Besides,  beauty  does  not  de- 
pend upon  features  regular  in  themselves,  but  the 
way  those  features  are  put  together." 

"  Oh,  mine  are  arranged  in  an  amiable  sort  of  way. 
I  don't  look  cross." 

"You  must  look  sweetness  itself,"  said  I. 

She  sighed  and  said  meditatively: 

"It  is  a  great  misfortune  for  a  girl  to  be  so  des- 
perately plain.  The  consciousness  of  it  comes  upon 
her  like  a  cold  shower-bath  when  she  is  out  with  other 
girls.    Now  there  is  my  cousin " 

"Which  cousin.^" 

"My  Uncle  Henry's  daughter.  Shall  I  tell  you 
about  her.^ " 

"  I  am  not  in  the  least  interested  in  your  cousin," 
I  replied. 

She  laughed,  and  the  entrance  of  the  nurse  put  an 
end  to  the  conversation. 

Now  I  must  make  a  confession.  I  was  grievously 
disappointed.  Her  detailed  description  of  herself  as 
a  sallow,  ill-featured  young  woman  awoke  me  with 
a  shock  from  my  dreams  of  a  radiant  goddess.  It 
arrested  my  infatuation  in  mid-course.  My  dismay 
was  painful.    I  began  to  pity  her  for  being  so  un- 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  137 

attractive.  For  the  next  day  or  two  even  her  beauti- 
ful voice  failed  in  its  seduction. 

But  soon  a  face  began  to  dawn  before  me,  eluave 
at  first,  and  then  gradually  gaining  in  definition.  At 
last  the  picture  flashed  upon  my  mental  vision  with 
sudden  vividness,  and  it  has  never  left  me  to  this 
day.  Its  steadfastness  convinced  me  of  its  accuracy. 
It  was  so  real  that  I  could  see  its  expression  vary, 
as  she  spoke,  according  to  her  mood.  The  pleunness, 
ahnost  ugliness,  of  the  face  repelled  me.  I  thought 
ruefully  of  having  dreamed  of  kisses  from  the  lips 
that  barely  closed  in  front  of  the  great  white  teeth. 
Yet,  after  a  while,  its  higher  quahties  exercised  a 
peculiar  attraction.  A  brave,  tender  spirit  shone 
through.  An  intellectual  alertness  redeemed  the 
heavy  features  —  the  low  ugly  brow,  the  coarse 
nose,  the  large  mouth;  and  as  I  lay  thinking  and 
picturing  there  was  revealed  in  an  illuminating  flash 
the  secret  of  the  harmony  between  face  and  voice. 
Thenceforward  Valerie  Deane  was  invested  with  a 
beauty  all  her  own.  I  loved  the  dear  plaiu  face  as 
I  loved  the  beautiful  voice,  and  the  touch  of  her 
fingers,  and  the  tender,  laughiag  womanliness,  and 
all  that  went  with  the  concept  of  Valerie  Deane. 

Had  I  possessed  the  daring  of  Young  Lochravar, 
I  should,  on  several  occasions,  have  declared  my 
passion.  But  by  temperament  I  am  a  diffident 
procrastinator.  I  habitually  lose  golden  moments 
as  some  people  habituaUy  lose  umbrellas.  Alas  I 
There  is  no  Lost  Property  Office  for  golden  mo- 
ments! 

Still  I  vow,  although  nothing  definite  was  said, 


138  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

that  when  the  unanticipated  end  drew  near,  our  in- 
tercourse was  arrant  love-making. 

All  pain  had  gone  from  my  eyes.  I  was  up  and 
dressed  and  permitted  to  grope  my  way  about  the 
blackness.  To-morrow  I  was  to  have  my  first  brief 
glimpse  of  things  for  three  weeks,  in  the  darkened 
room.  I  was  in  high  spirits.  Valerie,  paying  her 
morning  visit,  seemed  depressed. 

"But  think  of  it!"  I  cried  in  pardonable  egotism. 
"To-morrow  I  shall  be  able  to  see  you.  I've  longed 
for  it  as  much  as  for  the  sight  of  the  blue  sky." 

"There  isn't  any  blue  sky,"  said  Valerie.  "It's 
an  inverted  tureen  that  has  held  pea-soup." 

Her  voice  had  all  the  melancholy  notes  of  the  wood- 
wind in  the  imseen  shepherd's  lament  in  "Tristan 
und  Isolde." 

"  I  don't  know  how  to  tell  you,"  she  exclaimed  tragi- 
cally, after  a  pause.  "  I  shan't  be  here  to-morrow. 
It's  a  bitter  disappointment.  My  aunt  in  Wales  is 
dying.    I  have  been  telegraphed  for,  and  I  must  go." 

She  sat  on  the  end  of  the  couch  where  I  was 
lounging,  and  took  my  hands. 

"It  isn't  my  fault." 

My  spirits  fell  headlong. 

"  I  would  just  as  soon  keep  blind,"  said  I  blankly. 

"I  thought  you  would  say  that." 

A  tear  dropped  on  my  hand.  I  felt  that  it  was 
brutal  of  her  aunt  to  make  Valerie  cry.  Why  could 
she  not  postpone  her  demise  to  a  more  suitable  oppor- 
tunity? I  murmured,  however,  a  few  decent  words 
of  condolence. 

"Thank  you,  Mr.  Winter,"  said  Valerie.    "I  am 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  139 

fond  of  my  aunt;  but  I  had  set  my  heart  on  your 
seeing  me.  And  she  may  not  die  for  weeks  and 
weeks  I  She  was  dying  for  ever  so  long  last  year,  and 
got  roimd  again." 

I  ventured  an  arm  about  her  shoulders,  and  spoke 
consolingly.  The  day  would  come  when  our  eyes 
would  meet.  I  called  her  Valerie  and  bade  her  ad- 
dress me  as  Harold. 

I  have  come  to  the  conclusion  that  the  man  who 
strikes  out  a  new  line  in  love-making  is  a  genius. 

"  If  I  don't  hurry  I  shall  miss  my  train,"  she  sighed 
at  last. 

She  rose;  I  felt  her  bend  over  me.  Her  hands 
closed  on  my  cheeks,  and  a  kiss  fluttered  on  my  hps. 
I  heard  the  Hght  swish  of  her  skirts  and  the  quick 
opening  and  shutting  of  the  door,  and  she  was  gone. 

Valerie's  aunt,  like  King  Charles  II,  was  an  un- 
conscionable time  a-dying.  When  a  note  from 
Valerie  announced  her  return  to  Grandchester,  I  had 
already  gone  blue-spectacled  away.  For  some  time 
I  was  not  allowed  to  read  or  write,  and  during  this 
period  of  probation  urgent  affairs  summoned  me  to 
Vienna.  Such  letters  as  I  wrote  to  Valerie  had  to  be 
of  the  most  elementary  nature.  If  you  have  a  heart 
of  any  capacity  worth  troubling  about,  you  cannot 
empty  it  one  on  side  of  a  sheet  of  notepaper.  For 
mine  reams  would  have  been  inadequate.  I  also 
longed  to  empty  it  in  her  presence,  my  eyes  meeting 
hers  for  the  first  time.  Thus,  ever  haunted  by  the 
beloved  plain  face  and  the  memorable  voice,  I  re- 
mained inarticulate. 


140  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

As  soon  as  my  business  was  so  far  adjusted  that 
I  could  leave  Vienna,  I  started  on  a  flying  visit,  post- 
haste, to  England.  The  morning  after  my  arrival 
beheld  me  in  a  railway  carriage  at  Euston  waiting 
for  the  train  to  carry  me  to  Grandchester.  I  had 
telegraphed  to  Valerie;  also  to  Mr.  Deane,  the 
ocuhst,  for  an  appointment  which  might  give  colour 
to  my  visit.  I  was  alone  in  the  compartment.  My 
thoughts,  far  away  from  the  long  platform,  leaped 
the  four  hours  that  separated  me  from  Grandchester. 
For  the  thousandth  time  I  pictured  our  meeting.  I 
foreshadowed  speeches  of  burning  eloquence.  I  saw 
the  homely  features  transfigured.  I  closed  my  eyes 
the  better  to  retain  the  beatific  vision.  The  train 
began  to  move.  Suddenly  the  door  was  opened,  a 
girhsh  figure  sprang  into  the  compartment,  and  a 
porter  running  by  the  side  of  the  train,  threw  in  a 
bag  and  a  bundle  of  wraps,  and  slammed  the  door 
violently.  The  young  lady  stood  with  her  back  to 
me,  panting  for  breath.  The  luggage  lay  on  the  floor. 
I  stooped  to  pick  up  the  bag;  so  did  the  young  lady. 
Our  hands  met  as  I  lifted  it  to  the  rack. 

"Oh,  please,  don't  trouble!"  she  cried  in  a  voice 
whose  famiUarity  made  my  heart  beat. 

I  caught  sight  of  her  face,  for  the  first  time,  and 
my  heart  beat  faster  than  ever.  It  was  her  face  — 
the  face  that  had  dawned  upon  my  blindness  —  the 
face  I  had  grown  to  worship.  I  looked  at  her,  trans- 
fixed with  wonder.  She  settled  herself  unconcerned 
in  the  farther  comer  of  the  carriage.  I  took  the 
opposite  seat  and  leaned  forward. 

"You  are  Miss  Deane.^"  I  asked  tremulously. 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  141 

She  drew  herself  up,  on  the  defensive. 

"That  is  my  name,"  she  said. 

"Valerie!"  I  cried  in  exultation. 

She  half  rose.  "What  right  have  you  to  address 
me?" 

"I  am  Harold  Winter,"  said  I,  taken  aback  by  her 
outraged  demeanour.  "  Is  it  possible  that  you  don't 
recognize  me.^^" 

"  I  have  never  seen  or  heard  of  you  before  in  my 
life,"  replied  the  young  lady  tartly,  "and  I  hope  you 
won't  force  me  to  take  measures  to  protect  myself 
against  your  impertinence." 

I  lay  back  against  the  cushions,  gasping  with 
dismay. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  I,  recovering;  "I  am 
neither  going  to  molest  you  nor  be  intentionally  im- 
pertinent. But,  as  your  face  has  never  been  out  of 
my  mind  for  three  months,  and  as  I  am  travelling 
straight  through  from  Vienna  to  Grandchester  to  see 
it  for  the  first  time,  I  may  be  excused  for  addressing 
you." 

She  glanced  hurriedly  at  the  communication-cord 
and  then  back  at  me,  as  if  I  were  a  lunatic. 

"You  are  Miss  Deane  of  Grandchester  —  daughter 
of  Dr.  Deane  .*^"  I  asked. 

"Yes." 

"Valerie  Deane,  then?" 

"I  have  told  you  so." 

"Then  all  I  can  say  is,"  I  cried,  losing  my  temper 
at  her  stony  heartlessness,  "that  your  conduct  in 
turning  an  honest,  decent  man  into  a  besotted  fool, 
and  then  disclaiming  all  knowledge  of  him,  is  out- 


142  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

rageous.  It's  damnable.  The  language  hasn't  a 
word  to  express  it!" 

She  stood  with  her  hand  on  the  cord. 

"I  shall  really  have  to  call  the  guard,"  she  said, 
regarding  me  coolly. 

"You  are  quite  free  to  do  so,"  I  answered.  "But 
if  you  do,  I  shall  have  to  show  your  letters,  in  sheer 
self-defence.  I  am  not  going  to  spend  the  day  in  a 
pohce-station." 

She  let  go  the  cord  and  sat  down  again. 

"What  on  earth  do  you  mean?"  she  asked. 

I  took  a  bundle  of  letters  from  my  pocket  and 
tossed  one  over  to  her.  She  glanced  at  it  quickly, 
started,  as  if  in  great  surprise,  and  handed  it  back 
with  a  smile. 

"I  did  not  write  that." 

I  thought  I  had  never  seen  her  equal  for  unblush- 
ing impudence.  Her  mellow  tones  made  the  mockery 
appear  all  the  more  diabohcal. 

"If  you  didn't  write  it,"  said  I,  "I  should  like  to 
know  who  did." 

"My  Cousm  Valerie." 

"I  don't  understand,"  said  I. 

"  My  name  is  Valerie  Deane  and  my  cousin's  name 
is  Valerie  Deane,  and  this  is  her  handwriting." 

Bewildered,  I  passed  my  hand  over  my  eyes. 
What  feline  trick  was  she  playing?  Her  treachery 
was  incomprehensible. 

"  I  suppose  it  was  your  Cousin  Valerie  who  tended 
me  during  my  blindness  at  your  father's  house,  who 
shed  tears  because  she  had  to  leave  me,  who " 

"Quite    possibly,"    she    interrupted.     "Only   it 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  143 

would  have  been  at  her  father's  house  and  not 
mine.  She  does  tend  bhnd  people,  my  father's 
patients." 

I  looked  at  her  open-mouthed.  "In  the  name  of 
Heaven,"  I  exclaimed,  "who  are  you,  if  not  the 
daughter  of  Dr.  Deane  of  Stavaton  Street?" 

"  My  father  is  Mr.  Henry  Deane,  the  ocuhst.  You 
asked  if  I  were  the  daughter  of  Dr.  Deane.  So  many 
people  give  him  the  wrong  title  I  didn't  trouble 
to  correct  you." 

It  took  me  a  few  moments  to  recover.  I  had  been 
making  a  pretty  fool  of  myself.  I  stammered  out 
pleas  for  a  thousand  pardons.  I  confused  myself, 
and  her,  in  explanation.  Then  I  remembered  that 
the  fathers  were  twin  brothers  and  bore  a  strong 
resemblance  one  to  the  other.  What  more  natural 
than  that  the  daughters  should  also  be  alike  .•^ 

"WTiat  I  can't  understand,"  said  Miss  Deane,  "is 
how  you  mistook  me  for  my  cousin." 

"Your  voices  are  identical." 

"But  our  outer  semblances " 

"I  have  never  seen  your  cousin-  she  left  me 
before  I  recovered  my  sight." 

"How  then  could  you  say  you  had  my  face  before 
you  for  three  months  .^^" 

"  I  am  afraid.  Miss  Deane,  I  was  wrong  in  that  as 
in  everything  else.  It  was  her  face.  I  had  a  mental 
picture  of  it." 

She  put  on  a  puzzled  expression.  "And  you  used 
the  mental  picture  for  the  purpose  of  recognition?" 

"Yes,"  said  I. 

"  I  give  it  up,"  said  Miss  Deane. 


144  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

She  did  not  press  me  further.  Her  Cousin  Valerie's 
love  affairs  were  grounds  too  delicate  for  her  to  tread 
upon.  She  turned  the  conversation  by  politely  ask- 
ing me  how  I  had-  come  to  consult  her  father.  I 
mentioned  my  friend  Mobray  and  the  gun  accident. 
She  remembered  the  case  and  claimed  a  shght  ac- 
quaintance with  Mobray,  whom  she  had  met  at 
various  houses  in  Grandchester.  My  credit  as  a 
sane  and  reputable  person  being  estabhshed,  we 
began  to  chat  most  amicably.  I  found  Miss  Deane 
an  accomplished  woman.  We  talked  books,  art, 
travel.  She  had  the  swift  wit  which  dehghts  in 
bridging  the  trivial  and  the  great.  She  had  a  play- 
ful fancy.  Never  have  I  found  a  personaUty  so  im- 
mediately sympathetic.  I  told  her  a  sad  httle 
Viennese  story  in  which  I  happened  to  have  played  a 
minor  part,  and  her  tenderness  was  as  spontaneous  as 
Valerie's  —  my  Valerie's.  She  had  Valerie's  wood- 
land laugh.  Were  it  not  that  her  personal  note,  her 
touch  on  the  strings  of  life  differed  essentially  from 
my  beloved's,  I  should  have  held  it  grotesquely  im- 
possible for  any  human  being  but  Valerie  to  be  sitting 
in  the  opposite  corner  of  that  railway  carriage.  In- 
deed there  were  moments  when  she  was  Valerie, 
when  the  girl  waiting  for  me  at  Grandchester  faded 
into  the  limbo  of  unreal  things.  A  kiss  from  those 
lips  had  fluttered  on  mine.  It  were  lunacy  to  doubt 
it. 

During  intervals  of  non-illusion  I  examined  her 
face  critically.  There  was  no  question  of  its  unat- 
tractiveness  to  the  casual  observer.  The  nose  was 
too  large  and  fleshy,  the  teeth  too  prominent,  the 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  145 

eyes  too  small.  But  my  love  had  pierced  to  its 
miderlying  spirituality,  and  it  was  the  face  above  all 
others  that  I  desired. 

Toward  the  end  of  a  remarkably  short  four  hours' 
journey,  Miss  Deane  graciously  expressed  the  hope 
that  we  might  meet  again. 

"I  shall  ask  Valerie,"  said  I,  "to  present  me  in 
due  form." 

She  smiled  mahciously.  "Are  you  quite  sure  you 
will  be  able  to  distinguish  one  from  the  other  when 
my  cousin  and  I  are  together?" 

"Are  you,  then,  so  identically  alike.^" 

"That's  a  woman's  way  of  answering  a  question 
—  by  another  question,"  she  laughed. 

"Well,  but  are  you.^"  I  persisted. 

"How  otherwise  could  you  have  mistaken  me  for 
her?"  She  had  drawn  off  her  gloves,  so  as  to  give 
a  tidying  touch  to  her  hair.  I  noticed  her  hands, 
small,  long,  and  deft.  I  wondered  whether  they  re- 
sembled Valerie's. 

"Would  you  do  me  the  great  favour  of  letting  me 
touch  your  hand  while  I  shut  my  eyes,  as  if  I  were 
bhnd?" 

She  held  out  her  hand  frankly.  My  fingers  ran 
over  it  for  a  few  seconds,  as  they  had  done  many 
times  over  Valerie's.    "Well?"  she  asked. 

"Not  the  same,"  said  L 

She  flushed,  it  seemed  angrily,  and  glanced  down 
at  her  hand,  on  which  she  immediately  proceeded  to 
draw  a  glove. 

"Yours  are  stronger.  And  finer,"  I  added,  when 
I  saw  that  the  tribute  of  strength  did  not  please. 


146  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"It's  the  one  little  personal  thing  I  am  proud  of," 
she  remarked. 

"You  have  made  my  four  hours  pass  like  four 
minutes,"  said  I.  "A  service  to  a  fellow-creature 
which  you  might  take  some  pride  in  having  per- 
formed." 

"  When  I  was  a  child  I  could  have  said  the  same  of 
performing  elephants." 

"  I  am  no  longer  a  child,  Miss  Deane,"  said  I  with 
a  bow. 

What  there  was  in  this  to  make  the  blood  rush  to 
her  pale  cheeks  I  do  not  know.  The  ways  of  women 
have  often  surprised  me.  I  have  heard  other  men 
make  a  similar  confession. 

"  I  think  most  men  are  children,"  she  said  shortly. 

"In  what  way?" 

"Their  sweet  irresponsibiUty,"  said  Miss  Deane. 

And  then  the  train  entered  Grandchester  Station. 

I  deposited  my  bag  at  the  station  hotel  and  drove 
straight  to  Stavaton  Street.  I  forgot  Miss  Deane. 
My  thoughts  and  longings  centred  in  her  beloved 
counterpart,  with  her  tender,  caressing  ways,  and 
just  a  subtle  inflection  in  the  voice  that  made  it 
more  exquisite  than  the  voice  to  which  I  had  been 
listening. 

The  servant  who  opened  the  door  recognized  me 
and  smiled  a  welcome.  Miss  Valerie  was  in  the 
drawing-room. 

"  I  know  the  way,"  said  I. 

Impetuous,  I  ran  up  the  stairs,  burst  into  the  draw- 
ing-room, and  stopped  short  on  the  threshold  in 
presence  of  a  strange  and  exceedingly  beautiful 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  147 

young  woman.  She  was  stately  and  slender.  She 
had  masses  of  bright  brown  hair  wavhig  over  a 
beautiful  brow.  She  had  deep  sapphire  eyes,  like 
stars.  She  had  the  complexion  of  a  Greuze  child. 
She  had  that  air  of  fairy  diaphaneity  combined  with 
the  glow  of  superb  health  which  makes  the  typical 
loveliness  of  the  Englishwoman.  I  gaped  for  a 
second  or  two  at  this  gracious  apparition. 

"I  beg  your  pardon,"  said  I;  "I  was  told — " 

The  apparition  who  was  standing  by  the  fireplace 
smiled  and  came  forward  with  extended  hands. 

"Why,  Harold  I  Of  course  you  were  told.  It  is 
all  right.    I  am  Valerie." 

I  blinked;  the  world  seemed  upside  down;  the 
enchanting  voice  rang  in  my  ears,  but  it  harmonized 
in  no  way  with  the  equally  enchanting  face.  I 
put  out  my  hand.  "How  do  you  do?"  I  said 
stupidly. 

"But  aren't  you  glad  to  see  me?"  asked  the 
lovely  young  woman. 

"Of  course,"  said  I;  "I  came  from  Vienna  to  see 
you." 

"But  you  look  disappointed." 

"The  fact  is,"  I  stammered,  "I  expected  to  see 
some  one  different  —  quite  different.  The  face  you 
described  has  been  haunting  me  for  three  months." 

She  had  the  eff'rontery  to  laugh.  Her  eyes  danced 
mischief. 

"Did  you  really  think  me  such  a  hideous 
fright?" 

"You  were  not  a  fright  at  all,"  said  I,  remembering 
my  late  travelling  companion. 


148  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

And  then  in  a  flash  I  realised  what  she  had  done. 

"Why  on  earth  did  you  describe  your  cousin  in- 
stead of  yourself?" 

"My  cousin  I    How  do  you  know  that?" 

"Never  mind,"  I  answered.  "You  did.  During 
your  description  you  had  her  face  vividly  before  your 
mind.  The  picture  was  in  some  telepathic  way 
transferred  from  your  brain  to  mine,  and  there  it 
remained.  The  proof  is  that  when  I  saw  a  certain 
lady  to-day  I  recognised  her  at  once  and  greeted  her 
effusively  as  Valerie.  Her  name  did  happen  to  be 
Valerie,  and  Valerie  Deane  too,  and  I  ran  the  risk 
of  a  poHce-station — and  I  don't  think  it  was  fair  of 
you.    What  prompted  you  to  deceive  me?" 

I  was  hurt  and  angry,  and  I  spoke  with  some 
acerbity.    Valerie  drew  herself  up  with  dignity. 

"  If  you  claim  an  explanation,  I  will  give  it  to  you. 
We  have  had  yoimg  men  patients  in  the  house  before, 
and,  as  they  had  nothing  to  do,  they  have  amused 
themselves  and  annoyed  me  by  falling  in  love  with 
me.  I  was  tired  of  it,  and  decided  that  it  shouldn't 
happen  in  your  case.  So  I  gave  a  false  description 
of  myself.  To  make  it  consistent,  I  took  a  real 
person  for  a  model." 

"So  you  were  fooling  me  aU  the  time?"  said  I, 
gathering  hat  and  stick. 

Her  face  softened  adorably.  Her  voice  had  the 
tones  of  the  wood-wind. 

"Not  all  the  time,  Harold,"  she  said. 

I  laid  down  hat  and  stick. 

"Then  why  did  you  not  undeceive  me  after- 
ward?" . 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  149 

"I  thought,"  she  said,  blushing  and  giving  me  a 
fleeting  glance,  "well,  I  thought  you  —  you  wouldn't 
be  sorry  to  find  I  wasn't  —  bad  looking." 

"I  am  sorry,  Valerie,"  said  I,  "and  that's  the 
mischief  of  it." 

"  I  was  so  looking  forward  to  your  seeing  me,'*  she 
said  tearfully.  And  then,  with  sudden  petulance,  she 
stamped  her  small  foot.  "  It  is  horrid  of  you  —  per- 
fectly horrid  —  and  I  never  want  to  speak  to  you 
again."  The  last  word  ended  in  a  sob.  She  rushed 
to  the  door,  pushed  me  aside,  as  I  endeavoured  to 
stop  her,  and  fled  in  a  passion  of  tears.  Spretse 
injuria  formse!  Women  have  remained  much  the 
same  since  the  days  of  Juno. 

A  miserable,  remorseful  being,  I  wandered  through 
the  Grandchester  streets,  to  keep  my  appointment 
with  Mr.  Henry  Deane.  After  a  short  interview  he 
dismissed  me  with  a  good  report  of  my  eyes.  Miss 
Deane,  dressed  for  walking,  met  me  in  the  haU  as  the 
servant  was  showing  me  out,  and  we  went  together 
into  the  street. 

"Well,"  she  said  with  a  touch  of  irony,  "have  you 
seen  my  cousin?" 

"Yes,"  said  I. 

"Do  you  think  her  like  me?" 

"I  wish  to  Heaven  she  were!"  I  exclaimed  fer- 
vently. "  I  shouldn't  be  swirling  round  in  a  sort  of 
maelstrom." 

She  looked  steadily  at  me  —  I  like  her  downright^ 
ness. 

"Do  you  mind  telling  me  what  you  mean?" 

"  I  am  in  love  with  the  personaUty  of  one  woman 


150  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

and  the  face  of  another.  And  I  never  shaU  fall  out 
of  love  with  the  face." 

"And  the  personahty?" 

"God  knows,"  I  groaned. 

*  I  never  conceived  it  possible  for  any  man  to  fall 
in  love  with  a  face  so  hopelessly  unattractive,"  she 
said  with  a  smile. 

"It  is  beautiful,"  I  cried. 

She  looked  at  me  queerly  for  a  few  seconds,  during 
which  I  had  the  sensation  of  something  odd,  uncanny 
having  happened.  I  was  fascinated.  I  found  my- 
self saying:  "What  did  you  mean  by  the  'sweet 
irresponsibility  of  man '  .^  " 

She  put  out  her  hand  abruptly  and  said  good-bye. 
I  watched  her  disappear  swiftly  round  a  near  comer, 
and  I  went,  my  head  buzzing  with  her,  back  to  my 
hotel.  In  the  evening  I  dined  with  Dr.  Deane.  I 
had  no  opportunity  of  seeing  Valerie  alone.  In  a 
whisper  she  begged  forgiveness.  I  relented.  Her 
beauty  and  charm  would  have  mollified  a  cross 
rhinoceros.  The  love  in  her  splendid  eyes  would 
have  warmed  a  snow  image.  The  pressure  of  her 
hand  at  parting  brought  back  the  old  Valerie,  and 
I  knew  I  loved  her  desperately.  Rut  inwardly  I 
groaned,  because  she  had  not  the  face  of  my  dreams. 
I  hated  her  beauty.  As  soon  as  the  front  door  closed 
behind  me,  my  head  began  to  buzz  again  with  the 
other  Valerie. 

I  lay  awake  all  night.  The  two  Valeries  wove 
themselves  inextricably  together  in  my  hopes  and 
longings.  I  worshipped  a  composite  chimera. 
When  the  grey  davm  stole  through  my  bedroom 


A  LOVER'S  DILEMMA  151 

window,  the  chimera  vanished,  but  a  grey  dubiety 
dawned  upon  my  soul.  Day  invested  it  with  a 
ghastly  Hght.  I  rose  a  shivering  wreck  and  fled 
from  Grandchester  by  the  first  train. 

I  have  not  been  back  to  Grandchester.  I  am  in 
Vienna,  whither  I  returned  as  fast  as  the  Orient 
Express  could  carry  me.  I  go  to  bed  praying  that 
night  wiU  dispel  my  doubt.  I  wake  every  morning 
to  my  adamantine  indecision.  That  I  am  consum- 
ing away  with  love  for  one  of  the  two  Valeries  is  the 
only  certain  fact  in  my  uncertain  existence.  But 
which  of  the  Valeries  it  is  I  cannot  for  the  life  of  me 
decide. 

If  any  woman  (it  is  beyond  the  wit  of  man)  could 
solve  my  problem  and  save  me  from  a  hopeless  and 
hfelong  cehbacy  she  would  earn  my  undying  grati- 
tude, f 


IV 
A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR 

IT  was  a  tiny  room  at  the  top  of  what  used  to  be  a 
prmcely  London  mansion,  the  home  of  a  great 
noble  —  a  tiny  room,  eight  feet  by  five,  the 
sleeping-receptacle,  in  the  good  old  days,  for  some 
miconsidered  scullery-maid  or  under-footman.  The 
walls  were  distempered  and  bare;  the  furniture  con- 
sisted of  a  camp-bed,  a  chair,  a  deal  chest  of  drawers, 
and  a  wash-stand  —  everything  spotless.  There  was 
no  fireplace.  An  aerial  cell  of  a  room,  yet  the  woman 
in  nurse's  uniform  who  sat  on  the  bed  pressing  her 
hands  to  burning  eyes  and  aching  brows  thanked 
God  for  it.  She  thanked  God  for  the  privacy  of  it. 
Had  she  been  a  mere  nurse,  she  would  have  had  the 
third  share  of  a  large,  comfortable  bedroom,  with  a 
fire  on  bitter  winter  nights.  But,  as  a  Sister,  she 
had  a  room  to  herself.  Thank  God  she  was  alone! 
Coldly,  stonily,  silently  alone. 

The  expected  convoy  of  wounded  officers  had  been 
late,  and  she  had  remained  on  duty  beyond  her  hour, 
so  as  to  lend  a  hand.  Besides,  she  was  not  on  the 
regular  staff  of  the  private  hospital.  She  had  broken 
a  much  needed  rest  from  France  to  give  temporary 

152 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  153 

relief  from  pressure;  so  an  extra  hour  or  two  did  not 
matter. 

The  ambulances  at  length  arrived.  Some 
stretcher-cases,  some  walking.  Among  the  latter 
was  one,  strongly  knit,  athletic,  bandaged  over  the 
entire  head  and  eyes,  and  led  like  a  blind  man  by 
orderlies.  When  she  first  saw  him  in  the  vestibule, 
his  humorous  hps  and  resolute  chin,  which  were  all 
of  his  face  unhidden,  seemed  curiously  famihar; 
but  during  the  bustle  of  installation,  the  half-flash 
of  memory  became  extinct.  It  was  only  later,  when 
she  found  that  this  head-bandaged  man  was  assigned 
to  her  care,  that  she  again  took  particular  notice  of 
him.  Now  that  his  overcoat  had  been  taken  off, 
she  saw  a  major's  crown  on  the  sleeve  of  his  tunic, 
and  on  the  breast  the  ribbons  of  the  D.S.O.  and  the 
M.C.    He  was  talking  to  the  matron. 

"They  did  us  proud  all  the  way.  Had  an  ex- 
cellent dinner.  It's  awfully  kind  of  you;  but  I 
want  nothing  more,  I  assure  you,  save  just  to  get 
into  bed  and  sleep  like  a  dog." 

And  then  she  knew,  in  a  sudden  electric  shock  of 
certainty. 

Half  dazed,  she  heard  the  matron  say, 

"Sister,  this  is  Major  Shileto,  of  the  Canadian 
army." 

Half  dazed,  too,  she  took  his  gropingly  outstretched 
hand.  The  gesture,  wide  of  the  mark,  struck  her 
with  terror.  She  controlled  herself.  The  matron 
consulted  her  typed  return-sheet  and  ran  off  the 
medical  statement  of  his  injuries. 

Major  Shileto  laughed. 


154  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"  My  hat !  If  Fve  got  all  that  the  matter  with  me, 
why  didn't  they  bury  me  decently  in  France?" 

She  was  rent  by  the  gay  laughter.  When  the 
matron  turned  away,  she  followed  her. 

"Heisn'tbHnd,  ishe?" 

The  matron,  to  whose  naturally  thin,  pinched  face 
worry  and  anxiety  had  added  a  touch  of  shrewishness, 
swung  round  on  her. 

"  I  thought  you  were  a  medical  student.  Is  there 
anything  about  blindness  here?"  She  smote  the 
typed  pages.     "Of  course  not!" 

The  night  staff  being  on  duty,  she  had  then  fled 
the  ward  and  mounted  up  the  many  stairs  to  the 
httle  room  where  she  now  sat,  her  hands  to  her  eyes. 
Thank  God  he  was  not  bhnd,  and  thank  God  she 
was  alone! 

But  it  had  all  happened  a  himdred  years  ago. 
Well,  twenty  years  at  least.  In  some  vague  period 
of  folly  before  the  war.  Yet,  after  aU,  she  was  only 
five  and  twenty.  When  did  it  happen?  She  began 
an  agonized  calculation  of  dates 

She  had  striven  almost  successfully  to  put  the 
miserable  episode  out  of  her  mind,  to  regard  that 
period  of  her  life  as  a  phase  of  a  previous  existence. 
Since  the  war  began,  carried  on  the  flood-tide  of 
absorbing  work,  she  had  had  no  time  to  moralize  on 
the  past.  When  it  came  before  her  in  odd  moments, 
she  had  sent  it  packing  into  the  limbo  of  deformed 
and  hateful  things.  And  now  the  man  with  the 
gay  laughter  and  the  distinguished  soldier's  record 
had  brought  it  all  back,  horribly  vivid.  For  the 
scared  moments,  it  was  as  though  the  revolutionary 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  155 

war-years  had  never  been.  She  saw  herself  again 
the  Camilla  Warrington  whom  she  had  sought  con- 
temptuously to  bury. 

Had  there  been  but  a  musk  grain  of  beauty  in  that 
Camilla's  st(M^,  she  would  have  cherished  the  frag- 
rance; but  it  had  all  been  so  ignoble  and  stupid.  It 
had  begun  with  her  clever  girlhood.  The  London 
University  matriculation.  The  first  bachelor-of- 
science  degree.  John  Donovan,  the  great  surgeon, 
a  friend  of  her  parents,  had  encouraged  her  ambi- 
tions toward  a  medical  career.  She  became  a 
student  at  the  Royal  Free  Hospital,  of  the  consult- 
ing staff  of  which  John  Donovan  was  a  member. 
For  the  first  few  months,  all  went  well.  She  boarded 
near  by,  in  Bloomsbury,  with  a  vague  sort  of  aunt 
and  distant  cousins,  folks  of  unimpeachable  repute. 
Then,  fired  by  the  independent  theories  and  habits 
of  a.  couple  of  fellow  students,  she  left  the  home  of 
dull  respectability  and  joined  them  in  the  slatternly 
bohemia  of  a  Chelsea  slum. 

Oh,  there  was  excuse  for  her  youthful  ardency  to 
know  all  that  there  was  to  be  known  in  the  world  at 
onoel  But  if  she  had  used  her  excellent  brains, 
she  would  have  realized  that  all  that  is  to  be  known 
in  the  world  could  not  be  learned  in  her  new  environ- 
ment. The  unholy  crew  —  they  called  it  "The 
Brotherhood"  —  into  which  she  plunged  consisted 
of  the  dregs  of  a  decadent  art-world,  unclean  in  per- 
son and  in  ethics.  At  first,  she  revolted.  But  the 
specious  intellectuality  of  the  crew  fascinated  her. 
Hitherto,  she  had  seen  life  purely  from  the  scientific 
angle.    Material  cause,  material  effect.    On  matmal 


156  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

life,  art  but  an  excrescence.  She  had  been  care- 
lessly content  to  regard  it  merely  as  an  interpreta- 
tion of  Beauty  —  to  her,  almost  synonymous  with 
prettiness. 

At  the  various  meeting-places  of  the  crew,  who 
talked  with  the  interminability  of  a  Russian  Bolshe- 
vik, she  learned  a  smprising  lot  of  things  about  art 
that  had  never  entered  into  her  philosophy.  She 
learned,  or  tried  to  learn  —  though  her  inteUigence 
boggled  fearfully  at  it  —  that  the  most  vital  thing 
in  existence  was  the  decomposition  of  phenomena 
into  interesting  planes.  All  things  in  nature  were 
in  motion  —  as  a  scientific  truth,  she  was  inclined 
to  accept  the  proposition;  but  the  proclaimed  fact 
that  the  representation  of  the  Lucretian  theory  of 
fluidity  by  pictorial  diagrams  of  intersecting  planes 
was  destined  to  revolutionize  human  society  was 
beyond  her  comprehension.  StiU,  it  was  vastly 
interesting.  They  got  their  plane-system  into  sculp- 
ture, into  poetry,  in  some  queer  way  into  sociology. 

A  dingy  young  painter,  meagerly  hirsute,  and  a 
paflid  young  woman  of  anarchical  pohtics  assembled 
the  crew  one  evening  and,  taking  hands,  announced 
the  fact  of  their  temporary  marriage.  The  tem- 
porary bridegroom  made  a  speech  which  was  en- 
thusiastically acclaimed.  Their  association  was  con- 
nected (so  Camilla  understood)  with  some  sublime 
quahty  inherent  in  the  intersecting  planes.  In 
these  various  pairings  gleamed  none  of  the  old  Latin 
Quarter  joyousness.  Their  immorality  was  most 
austere. 

To  Camilla,  it  was  all  new  and  startling  —  a 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  157 

phantasmagorical  Avorld.  Free  love  the  merest 
commonplace.  And,  after  a  short  while,  into  this 
poisonous  atmosphere  wherein  she  dwelt  there  came 
two  influences.  One  was  the  vigilancy  of  the 
Women's  Social  and  PoKtical  Union;  the  other, 
Harry  Shileto,  a  young  architect,  a  healthy  man  in 
the  midst  of  an  unhealthy  tribe. 

First,  young  Shileto.  It  is  not  that  he  differed 
much  from  the  rest  of  the  crew  in  crazy  theory.  He 
maintained,  like  everyone  else,  that  Raphael  and 
Brunelleschi  had  retarded  the  progress  of  the  world 
for  a  thousand  years;  he  despised  Debussy  for  a 
half-hearted  anarchist;  he  lamented  the  failure  of 
the  architectural  iconoclasts  of  the  late  'Nineties; 
his  professed  contempt  for  all  human  activities 
outside  the  pale  of  the  slum  was  colossal;  on  the 
slum  marriage-theory  he  was  sound,  nay,  enthusias- 
tic. But  he  was  physically  clean,  physically  good- 
looking,  a  man.  And  as  Camilla,  too,  practised 
cleanliness  of  person,  they  were  drawn  together. 

And,  at  the  same  time,  the  cold,  relentless  hand  of 
the  great  feminist  organization  got  her  in  its  grip. 
Blindly  acting  under  orders,  she  interrupted  meet- 
ings, broke  windows,  went  to  prison,  shrieked  at 
street-comers  the  independence  of  her  sex.  And 
then  she  came  down  on  the  bed-rock  of  a  sex  by  no 
means  so  independent  —  on  the  contrary,  imperi- 
ously, tyrannically  dependent  on  hers.  The  theories 
of  the  slum,  uncompromisingly  suffragist,  were  all 
very  well;  they  might  be  practised  with  impunity 
by  the  anemic  and  slatternly;  but  when  Harry 
Shileto  entered  into  the  quasi-marriage  bond  with 


158  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Camilla,  the  instinct  of  the  honest  Briton  clamored 
for  the  comforts  of  a  home.  As  all  the  time  that 
she  could  spare  from  the  neglect  of  her  studies  at 
the  hospital  was  devoted  to  feminist  rioting,  and  a 
mere  rag  of  a  thing  came  back  at  night  to  the  un- 
cared-for flat,  the  young  man  rebelled. 

"You  can't  love  and  look  after  me  and  fool  about 
in  prison  at  the  same  time.  The  two  things  don't 
hold   together." 

And  Camilla,  her  nerves  a  jangle, 

"I  am  neither  your  odaUsk  nor  your  housekeeper; 
so  your  remark  does  not  apply." 

Oh,  the  squahd  squabbles!    And  then,  at  last, 

"Camilla"  —  he  gave  her  a  letter  to  read  —  "I'm 
fed  up  with  all  this  rot." 

She  glanced  over  the  letter. 

"Are  you  going  to  accept  this  post  in  Canada.**" 
she  asked  sourly. 

"Not  if  you  promise  to  chuck  the  mihtant  busi- 
ness and  also  these  epicene  freaks  in  Chelsea.  I 
should  like  you  to  carry  on  at  the  hospital  until 
you're  qualified." 

"You  seem  to  forget,"  she  said,  "that  I'm  like  a 
soldier  under  orders.  If  necessary,  I  must  sacrifice 
my  medical  career.  I  also  think  your  remarks  about 
The  Brotherhood  simply  beastly.  I'll  do  no  such 
thmg." 

Eventually  it  came  to  this: 

"  I  don't  care  whether  women  get  the  vote  or  not. 
I  think  our  Chelsea  friends  are  the  most  pestilential 
set  of  rotters  on  the  face  of  the  earth.  I've  got  my 
way  to  make  in  the  world.    Help  me  to  do  it.    Let 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  159 

us  get  married  in  decent  fashion  and  go  out  to- 
gether." 

"I  being  just  the  appanage  of  the  rising  young 
architect?    Thank  you  for  the  insult." 

And  so  the  argument  went  on  until  he  dehvered  his 
ultimatum: 

"  If  I  don't  get  a  sensible  message  by  twelve  o'clock 
to-morrow  at  the  club,  I'll  never  see  or  hear  of  you 
as  long  as  I  hve." 

He  went  out  of  the  flat.  She  sent  no  message. 
He  did  not  return.  After  a  while,  a  lawyer  came 
and  equitably  adjusted  joint  financial  responsibilities. 
And  that  was  the  end  of  the  romance  —  if  romance 
it  could  be  termed.  From  that  day  to  this,  Harry 
Shileto  had  vanished  from  her  ken. 

His  exit  had  been  the  end  of  the  romance;  but  it 
had  marked  the  beginning  of  tragedy.  A  man  can 
love  and,  however  justifiably,  ride  away  —  glori- 
ously free.  But  the  woman,  for  all  her  clamoring 
insistence,  has  to  pay  the  debt  from  which  man  is 
physically  exempt.  Harry  Shileto  had  already  ar- 
rived in  Canada  when  Camilla  discovered  the  dis- 
maying fact  of  her  sex's  disability.  But  her  pride 
kept  her  silent,  and  of  the  child  bom  in  secret  and 
dead  within  a  fortnight,  Harry  Shileto  never  heard. 
Then,  after  a  few  months  of  dejection  and  loss  of 
bearings  and  lassitude,  the  war  thundered  on  the 
world.  Her  friend,  John  Donovan,  the  surgeon,  was 
going  out  to  France.  She  went  to  him  and  said: 
"  I've  wasted  my  time.  It  will  take  years  for  me  to 
quahfy.  Let  me  go  out  and  nurse."  So,  through 
his  influence,  she  had  stepped  into  the  midst  of  the 


160  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

suifering  of  the  war,  and  there  she  still  remained  and 
found  great  happiness  in  great  work. 

At  length  she  drew  her  hands  from  her  brow  and 
went  and  poured  out  some  water,  for  her  throat  was 
parched.  On  catching  sight  of  herself  in  the  mirror, 
she  paused.  She  was  pale  and  worn,  and  there  were 
hollows  beneath  her  eyes,  catching  shadows,  but  the 
war  had  not  altogether  marred  her  face.  She  took 
off  her  uniform-cap  and  revealed  dark  hair,  full  and 
glossy.  She  half  wondered  why  the  passage  of  a 
hundred  years  had  not  turned  it  white.  Then 
she  sat  again  on  the  bed  and  gripped  her  hands 
together. 

"  My  God,  what  am  I  going  to  do.*^'* 

Had  she  loved  him.^  She  did  not  know.  Her  as- 
sociation with  him  could  not  have  been  entirely  the 
callous  execution  of  a  social  theory.  There  must 
have  been  irradiating  gleams.  Or  had  she  wilfully 
excluded  them  from  her  soul.^  Once  she  had  needed 
him  and  cried  for  him;  but  that  was  in  an  hour  of 
weakness  which  she  had  conquered.  And  now,  how 
could  she  face  him.^  Still  less,  hve  in  that  terrible 
intimacy  of  patient  and  nurse.^^  Oh,  the  miserable 
shame  of  it!  All  her  womanhood  shivered.  Yet 
she  must  go  through  the  ordeal.  His  bandaged 
eyes  promised  a  short  time  of  probation. 

In  the  morning,  after  a  restless  night,  she  pulled 
herself  together.  After  all,  what  need  for  such  a 
commotion?  If  the  three  and  a  half  years  of  war 
had  not  taught  her  dignity  and  self-reliance,  she  had 
learned  but  little. 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  161 

There  were  four  beds  in  the  ward.  Two  on  the 
right  were  occupied  by  officers,  one  with  an  arm- 
wound,  another  with  a  hole  through  his  body. 
The  third  on  the  left  by  a  pathetic-looking  boy  with 
a  shattered  knee,  which,  as  the  night  Sister  told  her, 
gave  him  unceasing  pain.  The  fourth  by  Major 
Shileto.    To  him  she  went  first  and  whispered: 

"  I'm  the  day  Sister.  What  kind  of  a  night  have 
you  had?" 

"Splendid!"  His  Hps  curled  in  a  pleasant  smile. 
"Just  one  long,  beautiful  blank." 

"And  the  head?" 

"  Jammy.  That's  what  it  feels  like.  How  it  looks, 
I  don't  know." 

"We'll  see  later  when  I  do  the  dressings." 

She  went  off  to  the  boy.  He  also  was  a  Canadian 
officer,  and  his  name  was  Robin  McKay.  She 
lingered  awhile  in  talk. 

"Strikes  me  my  military  career  is  over,  and  I'll 
just  have  to  himip  round  real  estate  in  Winnipeg  on 
a  wooden  leg." 

"They  aren't  going  to  cut  your  leg  off,  you  siUy 
boy!"  she  laughed.  "And  what  do  you  mean  by 
'humping  round  real  estate?'" 

"I'm  a  land  sin^eyor.  That's  to  say,  my  father 
is.  See  here:  When  are  they  going  to  send  me  back? 
I'm  afraid  of  this  country." 

"Why?" 

"  It's  so  lonesome.    I  don't  know  a  soul." 

"We'll  fix  that  up  all  right  for  you,"  she  said 
cheerily.     "Don't  worry." 

The  morning  routine  of  the  hospital  began.    In 


162  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

its  appointed  course  came  the  time  for  dressings. 
Camilla,  her  nerves  mider  control,  went  to  Shileto. 

"I've  got  to  worry  you,  but  I'll  try  to  hurt  as  little 
as  I  can." 

"  Go  ahead.    Never  mind  me." 

A  probationer  stood  by,  serving  the  laden  wheel- 
table.  At  first,  the  symmetrically  bandaged  head 
seemed  that  of  a  thousand  cases  with  which  she  had 
dealt.  But  when  the  crisp  brown  hair  came  to  view, 
her  hand  trembled  ever  so  httle.  She  avoided 
touching  it  as  far  as  was  possible,  for  she  remembered 
its  feel.  Dead,  forgotten  words  rose  lambent  in  her 
memory:  "if  crackles  like  a  cat's  back.  Let  me  see  if 
there  are  sparks.'' 

But  in  the  midst  of  a  great  shaven  patch  there  was 
a  horrible  scalp-wound  which  claimed  her  deftest 
skill.  And  she  worked  with  steady  fingers  and  un- 
covered the  maimed  brows  and  eyelids  and  cheek- 
bones. How  the  sight  had  been  preserved  was  a 
miracle.  She  cleansed  the  wounds  with  antiseptics 
and  freed  the  eyelashes.  She  bent  over  him  with 
deliberate  intent. 

"You  can  open  your  eyes  for  a  second  or  two. 
You  can  see  aU  right.^" 

"Rather.    I  can  see  your  belt." 

"Hold  on,  then." 

With  her  swift  craft,  she  blindfolded  him  anew, 
completed  the  bandaging,  laid  him  back  on  his  pillow, 
and  went  off  with  the  probationer,  wheeling  the 
table  to  the  other  cases. 

Later  in  the  day,  she  was  doing  him  some  trivial 
service. 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  163 

"What's  the  good  of  lying  in  bed  all  day?"  he 
asked.     "  I  want  to  get  up  and  walk  about." 

"You've  got  a  bit  of  a  temperature." 

"How  much?" 

"Ninety-nine  point  eight." 

"Call  that  a  temperature?  I've  gone  about  with 
a  hundred  and  three." 

"When  was  that?" 

"  When  I  first  went  out  to  Canada.  I'm  English, 
you  know  —  only  left  the  Old  Country  in  Nineteen 
thirteen.  But,  when  the  war  broke  out,  I  joined  up 
with  the  first  batch  of  Canadians  —  lucky  to  start 
with  a  commission.    Lord,  it  was  hell's  dehght!" 

"So  I've  been  given  to  understand,"  said  Camilla. 
"But  what  about  your  temperature  of  a  hundred 
and  three?" 

"I  was  a  young  fool,"  said  he,  "and  I  didn't 
care  what  happened  to  me." 

"Why?"  she  asked. 

For  a  while  he  did  not  answer.  He  bit  his  lower 
lip,  showing  just  a  fine  line  of  white  teeth.  Memory 
again  clutched  her.  She  was  also  struck  by  his  un- 
conscious reahzation  of  the  aging  quahty  of  the  war 
in  that  he  spoke  of  his  Nineteen-thirteen  self  as  "a 
young  fool."  So  far  as  that  went,  they  thought  in 
,  common. 

Presently  he  said, 

"Your  voice  reminds  me  of  some  one  I  used  to 
know." 

"Where?" 

"Oh,  here,  in  London." 

She  hed  instinctively,  with  a  laugh. 


164  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"It  couldn't  have  been  me.  I've  only  just  come 
to  London  —  and  I've  never  met  Major  Shileto 
before  in  my  life." 

"Of  course  not,"  he  asserted  readily.  "But  I 
had  no  idea  two  human  voices  could  be  so  nearly 
identical." 

"  Still,"  she  remarked,  "you  haven't  told  me  of  the 
temperature  of  a  hundred  and  three." 

"Oh,  it  is  no  story.  Your  voice  brought  it  all 
back.  You've  heard  of  a  man's  own  angry  pride 
being  cap  and  bells  for  a  fool?  Well"  —  he  laughed 
apologetically  —  "it's  idiotic.  There's  no  point  in 
it.  I  just  went  about  for  a  week  in  a  Canadian 
winter  with  that  temperature  —  that's  all." 

"Because  you  couldn't  bear  to  lie  alone  and  think?" 

"That's  about  it." 

"Sister!"  cried  the  boy,  Robin  McKay,  from  the 
next  bed. 

She  obeyed  the  siunmons.    What  was  the  matter? 

"Everything  seems  to  have  got  mixed  up,  and 
my  knee's  hurting  like  fury." 

She  attended  to  his  crumpled  bedclothes,  cracked 
a  Uttle  joke  which  made  him  laugh.  Then  the 
two  other  men  claimed  her  notice.  She  carried  on 
her  work  outwardly  calm,  smiling,  self-rehant,  the 
perfectly  trained  woman  of  the  war.  But  her 
hectft  was  beating  in  an  unaccustomed  way. 

Her  ministrations  over,  she  left  the  ward  for  duty 
elsewhere. 

At  tea-time  she  returned,  and  aided  the  blind- 
folded man  to  get  through  the  meal.  The  dread  of 
the  morning  had  given  place  to  mingled  mind-rack- 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  165 

ing  wonder  and  timidity.  He  had  gone  off,  on  the 
hot  speed  of  their  last  quarrel,  out  of  her  life.  Save 
for  a  short,  anguished  period,  during  which  she  had 
lost  self-control,  she  had  never  reproached  him. 
She  had  asserted  her  freedom.  He  had  asserted 
his.  Nay;  more  —  he  had  held  the  door  open  for  a 
way  out  from  an  impossible  situation,  and  she  had 
slammed  the  door  in  his  face.  Self-centered  in  those 
days,  centered  since  the  beginning  of  the  war  in 
human  suffering,  she  had  thought  httle  of  the  man^s 
feelings.  He  had  gone  away  and  forgotten,  or  done 
his  best  to  forget,  an  ugly  memory.  Her  last  night's 
review  of  ghosts  had  proved  the  non-existence  of 
any  illusions  among  them.  But  now,  now  that  the 
chances  of  war  had  brought  them  again  together, 
the  sound  of  her  voice  had  conjured  up  in  him,  too, 
the  ghosts  of  the  past.  She  had  been  responsible 
for  his  going-about  with  a  temperature  of  a  hundred 
and  three,  and  for  his  not  caring  what  happened  to 
him.  He  had  lifted  the  corner  of  a  curtain,  reveal- 
ing the  possibiHty  of  undreamed-of  happenings. 

"You  were  quoting  Tennyson  just  now,"  she  re- 
marked. 

"Was  1.:^" 

"Your  cap-and-bells  speech." 

"  Oh,  yes.    What  about  it.»  " 

"I  was  only  wondering." 

"Like  a  woman,  you  resent  a  half-confidence." 

She  drew  in  a  sharp  Uttle  breath.  The  words,  the 
tone,  stabbed  her.  She  might  have  been  talking  to 
him  in  one  of  their  pleasanter  hours  in  the  Chelsea 
flat.     In  spite  of  her  burning  curiosity,  she  said, 


166  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"I'm  not  a  woman;  I'm  a  nmse." 

"Since  when?" 

"As  far  as  you  people  are  concerned,  since  Septem- 
ber, '14,  when  I  went  out  to  France.  I've  been 
through  everything  —  from  the  firing-hne  field- 
ambulances,  casualty  clearing-stations,  base  hos- 
pitals—  and  now  I'm  here  having  a  rest-cure. 
Hundreds  and  hundreds  of  men  have  told  me  their 
troubles  —  so  I've  got  to  regard  myself  as  a  sort  of 
mother  confessor." 

He  smiled. 

"Then,  like  a  mother  confessor,  you  resent  a 
half-confidence?  " 

She  put  a  cigarette  between  his  lips  and  fit  it  for 
him. 

"It  aU  depends,"  she  said  lightly,  "whether  you 
want  absolution  or  not.  I  suppose  it's  the  same  old 
story."  She  held  her  voice  in  command.  "Every 
man  thinks  it's  original.  What  kind  of  a  woman 
was  she?" 

He  parried  the  thrust.  ^ 

"Isn't  that  rather  too  direct  a  question,  even  for 
a  mother  confessor?" 

"You'll  be  spilling  ash  all  over  the  bed.  Here's 
an  ash-tray."  She  guided  his  hand.  "Then  you 
don't  want  absolution?" 

"Oh,  yes,  I  do!  But,  you  see,  I'm  not  yet  in 
articulo  mortis,  so  I'll  put  off  my  confession." 

"Anyhow,  you  loved  the  woman  you  treated 
badly?"  The  question  was  as  casual  as  she  could 
make  it,  while  she  settled  the  tea-things  on  the 
tray. 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  167 

"It  was  a  girl,  not  a  woman." 

"  What  has  become  of  her?  " 

"That's  what  I  should  Kke  to  know." 

"But  you  loved  her?" 

"Of  course  I  did!  I'm  not  a  blackguard.  Of 
com-se  I  loved  her."  Her  pulses  quickened.  "But 
much  water  has  run  under  London  Bridge  since 
then." 

"And  much  blood  has  flowed  in  France." 

"Everything  —  Kves,  habits,  modes  of  thought 
have  been  revolutionized.  Yes"  — he  reflected  for 
a  moment  —  "it's  odd  how  you  have  brought  back 
old  days.  I  fell  in  with  a  pestilential,  so-caUed 
artistic  crowd  —  I  am  an  architect  by  profession  — 
you  know,  men  with  long  greasy  hair  and  dirty 
finger  nails  and  anarchical  views.  There  was  one 
chap  especially,  who  I  thought  was  decadent  to  the 
bone.  Aloysius  Eglington,  he  called  himself."  The 
man  sprang  vivid  to  her  memory;  he  had  once  tried 
to  make  love  to  her.  "WeU,  I  came  across  him  the 
other  day  with  a  couple  of  wound-stripes  and  the 
mihtary-cross  ribbon.  For  a  man  like  that,  what 
an  upheaval!"  He  laughed  again.  "I  suppose 
I've  been  a  bit  upheaved  myself." 

"I'm  beginning  to  piece  together  yoiu*  story  of  the 
temperature,"  she  said  pleasantly.  "I  suppose  the 
girl  was  one  of  the  young  females  of  this  anarchical 
crowd?" 

Obviously  the  phrase  jarred. 

"I  could  never  regard  her  in  that  light,"  he  said 
coldly. 

"The  war  has  got  hold  of  her,  too,  I  suppose." 


168  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"No  doubt.  She  was  a  medical  student.  May 
I  have  another  cigarette?"  ' 

His  tone  signified  the  end  of  the  topic.  She  smiled, 
for  her  putting-down  was  a  triumph. 

The  probationer  came  up  and  took  away  the  tea- 
tray.  Camilla  left  her  patient  and  went  to  the  other 
beds. 

That  night  again,  she  sat  alone  in  her  Uttle  white 
room  and  thought  and  thought.  She  had  started 
the  day  with  half-formed  plans  of  flight  before  her 
identity  could  be  discovered.  She  was  there  vol- 
untarily, purely  as  an  act  of  grace.  She  could  walk 
out,  without  reproach,  at  a  moment's  notice.  But 
now  —  had  not  the  situation  changed?  To  her, 
as  to  a  stranger,  he  had  confessed  his  love.  She 
had  not  dared  probe  deeper  —  but  might  not  a 
deeper  probing  have  brought  to  light  something 
abiding  and  beautiful?  In  the  war,  she  had  ac- 
comphshed  her  womanhood.  Proudly  and  rightly 
she  recognized  her  development.  He,  too,  had 
accomplished  his  manhood.  And  his  dear  face  would 
be  maimed  and  scarred  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  Then, 
with  the  suddenness  of  a  tropical  storm,  a  wave  of 
intolerable  emotion  surged  through  her.  She  uttered 
a  httle  cry  and  broke  into  a  passion  of  tears.  And 
so  her  love  was  reborn. 

Professional  to  the  tips  of  her  cool  fingers,  she 
dressed  his  wounds  the  next  morning.  But  she  did 
not  lure  him  back  across  the  years.  The  present 
held  its  own  happiness,  tremulous  in  its  delicacy. 
It  was  he  who  questioned.    Whereabouts  in  France 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  169 

had  she  been?  She  repUed  with  scraps  of  anecdote. 
There  was  Httle  of  war's  horror  and  peril  through 
which  she  had  not  passed.  She  explained  her 
present  position  in  the  hospital. 

"By  George,  you're  splendid!"  he  cried.  "I 
wish  I  could  have  a  look  at  you." 

"You've  lost  yoiu"  chance  for  to-day,"  she  an- 
swered gaily.  For  she  had  completed  the  bandag- 
ing. 

After  dinner,  she  went  out  and  walked  the  streets 
in  a  day-dream,  a  soft  Hght  in  her  eyes.  The  mo- 
ment of  recognition  —  and  it  was  boimd  soon  to 
come  —  could  not  fail  in  its  touch  of  sanctification, 
its  touch  of  beauty.  He  and  she  had  passed  through 
fires  of  hell  and  had  emerged  purified  and  tempered. 
They  were  clear-eyed,  clear-souled.  The  greatest 
gift  of  God,  miraculously  regiven,  they  could  not 
again  despise.  On  that  dreary  afternoon,  Oxford 
Street  hummed  with  joy. 

Only  a  freak  of  chance  had  hitherto  preserved 
her  anonymity.  A  reference  by  matron  or  pro- 
bationer to  Sister  Warrington  would  betray  her  in- 
stantly.   Should  she  await  or  anticipate  betrayal? 

In  a  fluttering  tumult  of  indecision,  she  returned 
to  the  hospital.  The  visiting-hour  had  begun. 
When  she  had  taken  off"  her  outdoor  things,  she 
looked  into  the  ward.  Around  the  two  beds  on  the 
right,  Httle  groups  of  friends  were  stationed.  The 
boy,  Robin  McKay,  in  the  bed  nearest  the  door  on 
the  left,  caught  sight  of  her  and  summoned  her. 

"  Sister,  come  and  pretend  to  be  a  visitor.  There's 
not  a  soul  in  this  country  who  could  possibly  come 


170  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

to  see  me.  You  don't  know  what  it  is  to  be  home- 
sick." 

She  sat  by  his  side. 

"All  right.  Imagine  I'm  an  elderly  maiden  amit 
from  the  comitry." 

"You?"  he  cried,  with  overseas  frankness. 
"You're  only  a  kid  yourself." 

Major  Shileto  overheard  and  laughed.  Sh« 
blushed  and  half  rose. 

"  That's  not  the  way  to  treat  visitors,  Mr.  McKay." 

The  boy  stretched  out  his  hand. 

"I'm  awfully  sorry  if  I  was  rude.    Don't  go." 

She  yielded. 

"All  the  same,"  she  said,  "you'll  have  to  get  used 
to  a  bit  of  loneliness.  It  can't  be  helped.  Besides, 
you're  not  the  only  tiger  that  hasn't  got  a  Christian. 
There's  Major  Shileto.  And  you  can  read  and  he 
can't." 

The  voice  came  from  the  next  bed. 

"Don't  worry  about  me.  Talk  to  the  boy.  I'll 
have  some  one  to  see  me  to-morrow.  He  won't, 
poor  old  chap!" 

"Have  a  game  of  chess?"  said  the  boy. 

"With  pleasure." 

She  fetched  the  board  and  chessmen  from  the 
long  table  running  down  the  center  of  the  ward, 
and  they  set  out  the  pieces. 

"I  reckon  to  be  rather  good,"  said  he.  "Perhaps 
I  might  give  you  something." 

"I'm  rather  good  myself,"  she  repUed.  "I  was 
taught  by — "  She  stopped  short,  on  the  brink  of 
pronoimcing  the  name  of  the  young  Polish  master 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  171 

who  lived  (in  a  very  material  sense)  on  the  fringe  of 
the  Chelsea  crew.    "We'll  start  even,  at  any  rate." 

They  began.  She  realized  that  the  boy  had  not 
boasted,  and  soon  she  became  absorbed  in  the  game. 
So  intent  was  she  on  the  problem  presented  by  a 
briUiant  and  miexpected  move  on  his  part  that  she 
did  not  notice  the  opening  of  the  door  and  the  swift 
passage  of  a  fm'-coated  figm'e  behind  her  chair.  It 
was  a  cry  that  startled  her.  A  cry  of  surprise  and 
joy,  a  cry  of  the  heart. 

"Marjoriel" 

She  looked  up  and  saw  the  fur-coated  figiu-e  — 
thai  of  a  girl  with  fair  hair  —  on  her  knees  by  the 
bedside,  and  Harry  Shileto's  arms  were  round  her 
and  his  Hps  to  hers.    She  stared,  frozen.    She  heard: 

"I  didn't  expect  you  till  to-morrow." 

"  I  just  had  time  to  catch  the  train  at  Inverness. 
I've  not  brought  an  ounce  of  luggage.  Oh,  my  poor, 
poor,  old  Harry!" 

It  was  horrible. 

The  boy  said: 

"Never  mind,  Sister;  he's  got  his  Christian  all 
right.    Let's  get  on  with  the  game." 

Mechanically  obeying  a  professional  instinct,  she 
looked  at  the  swimming  chess-board  and  made  a 
move  haphazard. 

"I  say  — that  won't  do!"  cried  the  boy.  "It's 
mate  for  me  in  two  moves.    Buck  up!" 

With  a  great  effort,  she  caught  the  vanishing 
tail  of  her  previous  calculation  and  made  a  move 
which  happened  to  be  correct. 

"That's better,"  he  said.    "I  hoped  you  wouldn't 


172  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

spot  it.  But  I  couldn't  let  you  play  the  ass  with 
your  knight  and  spoil  the  game.  Now,  this  de- 
mands deep  consideration." 

He  lingered  a  while  over  his  move.  She  looked 
across.  The  pair  at  the  next  bed  were  talking  in 
whispers.  The  girl  was  now  sitting  on  the  chair  by 
the  bedside,  and  her  back  hid  the  face  of  the  man, 
though  her  head  was  near  his. 

"There!"  cried  the  boy  triumphantly. 

"I  beg  your  pardon;  I  didn't  see  it." 

"Oh,  I  say!"    His  finger  indicated  the  move. 

With  half  her  brain  at  work,  she  moved  a  pawn 
a  cautious  step.  The  boy's  whole  heart  was  in  his 
offensive.  He  swooped  a  bishop  triiunphantly 
athwart  the  board. 

"There's  only  one  thing  can  save  you  for  mate  in 
five  moves.  I  know  it  isn't  the  proper  thing  to  be 
chatting  over  chess,  but  I  like  it.  I'm  chatty  by 
nature." 

"Only  one  course  open  to  save  me  from  destruc- 
tion?" she  murmm-ed. 

"Just  one." 

And  she  heard,  from  the  next  bed: 

"Are  you  sure,  darling,  you're  only  saying  it  to 
break  the  shock  gently?  Are  you  sure  your  eyes 
are  all  right?" 

"Perfectly  certain." 

"I  wish  I  could  have  real  proof." 

Camilla  stared  at  the  blankness  of  her  vanished 
dream. 

"Come  along,  Sister;  put  your  back  into  it," 
chuckled  Robin  McKay. 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  173 

She  held  her  brows  tight  with  her  hands  and  strove 
to  concentrate  her  tortured  mind  on  the  board. 
Her  heart  was  in  agony  of  desolation.  The  soft 
murmurings  she  could  not  but  overhear  pierced  her 
brain.  The  poignant  shame  of  her  disillusionment 
burned  her  from  head  to  foot.  Again  she  heard 
the  girl's  pleading  voice: 

"Only  for  a  minute.     It  couldn't  hurt." 

The  boy  said: 

"Buck  up.    Just  one  tiny  brain-wave." 

At  the  end  of  her  tether,  she  cried:  "The  only 
way  out!  I  give  it  up!"  and  swept  the  pieces  over 
the  board. 

She  rose,  stood  transfixed  with  horror  and  sense 
of  outrage.  Harry  Shileto,  propped  on  pillows, 
was  unwinding  the  bandages  from  his  mangled  head. 
Devils  within  her  clamored  for  hysterical  outcry. 
But  something  physical  happened  and  checked  the 
breath  that  was  about  to  utter  his  Christian  name. 
The  boy  had  gripped  her  arm  with  all  his  young 
strength  in  passionate  remonstrance. 

"Oh,  dear  old  thing  —  do  play  the  game!" 

"I'm  sorry,"  she  said,  and  he  released  her. 

So  she  passed  swiftly  round  the  boy's  bed  to  that 
of  the  foolish  patient  and  arrested  his  hand. 

"Major  Shileto,  what  on  earth  are  you  doing?" 

The  girl,  who  was  very  pretty,  turned  on  her  an 
alarmed  and  tearful  face. 

" It  was  my  fault,  Sister.    Oh,  can  I  beHeve  him?" 

"You  can  believe  me,  at  any  rate,"  she  replied 
with  asperity,  swiftly  readjusting  the  bandage. 
"Major  Shileto's  sight  is  unaffected.    But  if  I  had 


174  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

not  been  here  and  he  had  succeeded  in  taking  off 
his  dressings,  God  knows  what  would  have  happened. 
Major  Shileto,  I  put  you  on  your  honor  not  to  do 
such  a  silly  thing  again." 

"All  right,  Sister,"  he  said,  with  a  httle  shame- 
faced twitch  of  the  hps.     ''Parole  d'officier." 

The  girl  rose  and  drew  her  a  step  aside. 

"Do  forgive  me,  Sister.  We  have  only  been 
married  five  months  —  when  he  was  last  home  on 
leave  —  and,  you  understand,  don't  you,  what  it 
would  have  meant  to  me  if " 

"Of  course  I  do.  Anyhow,  you  can  be  perfectly 
reassured.  But  I  must  warn  you,"  she  whispered, 
and  looked  through  narrowed  eyelids  into  the  girl's 
eyes;   "he  may  be  dreadfully  disfigm-ed." 

The  girl  shrank  terrified,  but  she  cried, 

"I  hope  I  shall  love  him  all  the  more  for  it!" 

"I  hope  so,  too,"  rephed  Camilla  soberly.  "I'll 
say  good-by,"  she  added,  in  a  louder  tone,  holding 
out  her  hand. 

"I'll  see  you  again  to-morrow.^"  the  girl  asked 
pohtely. 

"I'm  afraid  not." 
,     "  What's  that?  "  cried  Shileto. 

"  I  told  you  I  was  only  here  as  a  bird  of  passage. 
My  time's  up  to-day.    Good-by." 

"I'm  awfully  sorry.    Good-by." 

They  shook  hands.  Camilla  went  to  Robin 
McKay  and  bent  over  him. 

"You're  quite  right,  my  dear  boy.  One  ought 
to  play  the  game  to  the  bitter  end.  It's  the  thing 
most  worth  doing  in  life.    God  bless  you!" 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  175 

The  boy  stared  wonderingly  at  her  as  she  dis- 
appeared. 

"I'm  glad  she's  not  going  to  be  here  any  more," 
said  the  girl. 

Her  husband's  lips  smiled. 

"Why?" 

"She's  a  most  heartless,  overbearing  woman." 

"Oh,  they  all  seem  like  that  when  they're  upset,'* 
he  laughed.  "And  I  was  really  playing  the  most 
outrageous  fool." 

She  put  her  head  close  to  him  and  whispered, 

"  Don't  you  guess  why  I  was  so  madly  anxious  to 
know  that  you  could  see?" 

She  told  him.  And,  from  that  moment,  the  pos- 
sessor of  the  remembered  voice  faded  from  his 
memory. 

Camilla  went  to  the  matron. 

"I'm  sorry,  but  I've  bitten  off  more  than  I  can 
chew.  If  I  go  on  an  hour  longer,  I'll  break  down. 
I'm  due  in  France  in  a  fortnight,  and  I  must  have 
my  rest." 

"I  can  only  thank  you  for  your  self-sacrificing 
help,"  said  the  matron. 

But,  four  days  later,  ten  days  before  her  leave  had 
expired,  Camilla  appeared  at  the  casualty  clearing- 
station  in  France  of  which  she  was  a  Sister-in- 
charge. 

"What  the  devil  are  you  here  for?"  asked  the 
amazed  commanding  medical  officer. 

"England's  too  full  of  ghosts.  They  scared  me 
back  to  realities." 


176  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

The  M.  0.  laughed  to  hide  his  inabihty  to  under- 
stand. 

"Well,  if  you  like  'em,  it's  all  the  same  to  me. 
I'm  dehghted  to  have  you.  But  give  me  the  good 
old  ghosts  of  bhghty  all  the  time!" 

The  piercing  of  the  line  at  Cambrai  was  a  surprise 
no  less  to  the  Germans  than  to  the  British.  The 
great  tent  of  the  casualty  clearing-station  was 
crammed  with  woimded.  Doctors  and  nurses,  with 
tense,  burning  eyes  and  bodies  aching  from  strain, 
worked  and  worked,  and  thought  nothing  of  that 
which  might  be  passing  outside.  No  one  knew  that 
the  German  wave  had  passed  over.  And  the 
German  wave  itself,  at  that  ytut  of  the  line,  was  but 
a  set  of  straggling  and  mystified  groups. 

Camilla  Warrington,  head  of  the  heroic  host  of 
women  working  in  the  dimly  Ht  reek  of  blood  and 
agony,  had  not  slept  for  two  nights  and  two  days. 
The  last  convoy  of  woimded  had  poured  in  a  couple 
of  hours  before.  She  stood  by  the  surgeon,  aiding 
him,  the  perfect  machine.  At  last,  in  the  terrible 
rota,  they  came  to  a  man  swathed  round  the  middle 
in  the  rough  bandages  of  the  field  dressing-station. 
He  was  unconscious.  They  unwound  him,  and  re- 
vealed a  sight  of  unimaginable  horror. 

"He's  no  good,  poor  chap!"  said  the  surgeon. 

"Can't  you  try?"  she  asked,  and  put  repressing 
hands  on  the  wounded  man. 

"Not  the  sUghtest  good,"  said  the  medical  of- 
ficer. 

No  one  in  the  great  tent  of  agony  knew  that  they 


A  WOMAN  OF  THE  WAR  177 

were  isolated  from  the  British  army.  From  the 
outside,  it  looked  solitary,  hghted,  and  secm^e. 
Two  German  soldiers,  casual  stragglers,  looked  in  at 
the  door  of  the  great  tent.  In  the  kindly  German 
way,  they  each  threw  in  a  bomb,  and  ran  off  laugh- 
ing. Seven  men  were  killed  outright  and  many 
rewounded.    And  Camilla  Warrington  was  killed.* 

The  guards,  in  their  memorable  sweep,  cleared 
the  ground.  The  casualty  clearing-station  again 
came  into  British  hands. 

There  is  a  grave  in  that  region  whose  head-board 
states  that  it  is  consecrated  "to  the  Heroic  Memory 
of  Camilla  Warrington,  one  of  the  Great  Women  of 
the  War.' 

And  Marjorie  Shileto,  to  her  husband  healed  and 
sound,  searching  like  a  fooUsh  woman  deep  into  his 
past  history: 

"It's  awfully  decent  of  you,  darling,  to  hide 
nothing  from  me  and  to  tell  me  about  that  girl  in 
Chelsea.    But  what  was  she  Uke?" 

"My  sweetheart,"  said  he,  like  a  foolish  man, 
"she  wasn't  worth  your  httle  finger." 

*  The  bloody  and  hideous  incident  related  hwe  is  not  an  iaven- 
tion.    It  is  irae.    It  happened  when  and  where  I  have  indicated. 

W.  J.  L. 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM 

THAT  there  was  once  a  real  Prince  Rabomirski 
is  beyond  question.  That  he  was  Ottihe's 
father  may  be  taken  for  granted.  But  that 
the  Princess  Rabomirski  had  a  right  to  bear  the  title 
many  folks  were  scandalously  prepared  to  deny.  It 
is  true  that  when  the  news  of  the  Prince's  death 
reached  Monte  Carlo,  the  Princess,  who  was  there  at 
the  time,  showed  various  persons  on  whose  indis- 
cretion she  could  rely  a  holograph  letter  of  condolence 
from  the  Tsar,  and  later  unfolded  to  the  amiable 
muddle-headed  the  intricacies  of  a  lawsuit  which 
she  was  instituting  for  the  recovery  of  the  estates  in 
Poland;  but  her  detractors  roimdly  declared  the 
holograph  letter  to  be  a  forgery  and  the  lawsuit  a 
fiction  of  her  crafty  brain.  Princess  however  she 
continued  to  style  herself  in  Cosmopolis,  and  Prin- 
cess she  was  styled  by  all  and  simdry.  And 
Httle  Ottilie  Rabomirski  was  called  the  Princess 
Ottilie. 

Among  the  people  who  joined  heart  and  soul  with 
the  detractors  was  young  Vince  Somerset.  If  there 
was  one  person  whom  he  despised  and  hated  more 
than  Count  Bemheim  (of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire) 
it  was  the  Princess  Rabomirski.     In  his  eyes  she  was 

181 


182  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

everything  that  a  princess,  a  lady,  a  woman,  and  a 
mother  should  not  be.  She  dressed  ten  years  yomiger 
than  was  seemly,  she  spoke  English  like  a  barmaid 
and  French  like  a  cocotte,  she  gambled  her  way 
through  Europe  from  year's  end  to  year's  end,  and 
after  neglecting  OttUie  for  twenty  years,  she  was 
about  to  marry  her  to  Bemheim.  The  last  was  the 
unforgivable  offence. 

The  young  man  walked  up  and  down  the  Casino 
Terrace  of  lUerville-sur-Mer,  and  poured  into  a 
friend's  ear  his  flaming  indignation.  He  was  nine 
and  twenty,  and  though  he  pursued  the  unpoetical 
avocation  of  sub-editing  the  foreign  telegrams  on  a 
London  daily  newspaper,  retained  some  of  the 
vehemence  of  undergraduate  days  when  he  had 
chosen  the  career  (now  abandoned)  of  poet,  artist, 
dramatist,  and  irreconcilable  pohtician. 

"Look  at  them!"  he  cried,  indicating  a  couple 
seated  at  a  distant  table  beneath  the  awning  of  the 
cafe.  "Did  you  ever  see  anything  so  horrible  in 
your  hfe?  The  maiden  and  the  Minotaur.  When 
I  heard  of  the  engagement  to-day  I  wouldn't  be- 
lieve it  until  she  herself  told  me.  She  doesn't 
know  the  man's  abomination.  He's  a  by-word  of 
reproach  through  Europe.  His  name  stinks  like 
his  infernal  body.  The  Hve  air  reeks  with  the  scent 
he  pours  upon  himself.  There  can  be  no  turpitude 
under  the  sun  in  which  the  wretch  doesn't  wallow. 
Do  you  know  that  he  killed  his  first  wife?  Oh,  I 
don't  mean  that  he  cut  her  throat.  That's  far  too 
primitive  for  such  a  complex  hound.  There  are 
other  ways  of  murdering  a  woman,  my  dear  Ross. 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM         183 

You  kick  her  body  and  break  her  heart  and  defile 
her  soul.  That's  what  he  did.  And  he  has  done 
it  to  other  women." 

"But,  my  dear  man,"  remarked  Ross,  elderly  and 
cynical,  "he  is  colossally  rich." 

" Rich!  Do  you  know  where  he  made  his  money? 
In  the  cesspool  of  European  finance.  He's  a  Jew  by 
race,  a  German  by  parentage,  an  Itahan  by  upbring- 
ing and  a  Greek  by  profession.  He  has  bucket- 
shops  and  low-down  money-lenders'  cribs  and  rotten 
companies  all  over  the  Continent.  Do  you  remem- 
ber Sequasto  and  Co..^  That  was  Bemheim.  Eng- 
land's too  hot  to  hold  him.  Look  at  him  now  he  has 
taken  off  his  hat.  Do  you  know  why  he  wears  his 
greasy  hair  plastered  over  half  his  damned  forehead? 
It's  to  hide  the  mark  of  the  Beast.  He's  Antichrist! 
And  when  I  think  of  that  Jezebel  from  the  Mile  End 
Road  putting  Ottihe  into  his  arms,  it  makes  me  see 
red.  By  heavens,  it's  touch  and  go  that  I  don't  slay 
the  pair  of  them." 

"Very  likely  they're  not  as  bad  as  they're  painted," 
said  his  friend. 

"She  couldn't  be,"  Somerset  retorted  grimly. 

Ross  laughed,  looked  at  his  watch,  and  announced 
that  it  was  time  for  aperitifs.  The  young  man  as- 
sented moodily,  and  they  crossed  the  Terrace  to  the 
cafe  tables  beneath  the  awning.  It  was  the  dying 
afternoon  of  a  sultry  August  day,  and  most  of  Iller- 
ville  had  deserted  tennis  courts,  tir  aux  pigeons  and 
other  distractions  to  listen  lazily  to  the  band  in  the 
Casino  shade.  The  place  was  crowded;  not  a  table 
vacant.    When  the  waiter  at  last  brought  one  from 


184  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

the  interior  of  the  cafe,  he  dumped  it  down  beside 
the  table  occupied  by  the  unspeakable  Bemheim  and 
the  little  Princess  OttiUe.  Somerset  raised  his  hat 
as  he  took  his  seat.  Bemheim  responded  with  elab- 
orate poHteness,  and  Princess  Ottihe  greeted  him 
with  a  faint  smile.  The  engaged  pair  spoke  very 
little  to  each  other.  Bemheim  lounged  back  in  his 
chair  smoking  a  cigar  and  looked  out  to  sea  with  a 
bored  expression.  When  the  girl  made  a  casual  re- 
mark he  nodded  rudely  without  turning  his  head. 
Somerset  felt  an  irresistible  desire  to  kick  him.  His 
external  appearance  was  of  the  type  that  irritated 
the  young  Enghshman.  He  was  too  handsome  in 
a  hard,  swaggering  black-mustachioed  way;  he  ex- 
aggerated to  offence  the  English  style  of  easy  dress; 
he  wore  a  too  devil-may-care  Panama,  a  too  ob- 
trusive coloured  shirt  and  club  tie;  he  wore  no 
waistcoat,  and  the  hem  of  his  new  flannel  trousers, 
turned  up  six  inches,  disclosed  a  stretch  of  tan- 
coloured  silk  socks  clocked  with  gold  matching 
elegant  tan  shoes.  He  went  about  with  a  broken- 
spirited  poodle.  He  was  inordinately  scented.  Som- 
erset glowered  at  him,  and  let  his  drink  remain  un- 
tasted. 

Presently  Bemheim  simunoned  the  waiter,  paid 
him  for  the  tea  the  girl  had  been  drinking  and 
pushed  back  his  chair. 

"This  hole  is  getting  on  my  nerves,"  he  said  in 
French  to  his  companion.  "I  am  going  into  the 
cercle  to  play  ecarte.  Will  you  go  to  your  mother 
whom  I  see  over  there,  or  will  you  stay  here?" 

"I'll  stay  here,"  said  the  Uttle  Prmcess  Ottihe. 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM         185 

Bernheim  nodded  and  swaggered  off.  Somerset 
bent  forward. 

"I  must  see  you  alone  to-night  —  quite  alone. 
I  must  have  you  all  to  myself.  How  can  you 
manage  it?" 

Ottilie  looked  at  him  anxiously.  She  was  fair  and 
innocent,  of  a  prettiness  more  English  than  foreign, 
and  the  scare  in  her  blue  eyes  made  them  all  the 
more  appeahng  to  the  young  man. 

"What  is  the  good?  You  can't  help  me.  Don't 
you  see  that  it  is  all  arranged?" 

"I'll  imdertake  to  disarrange  it  at  a  moment's 
notice,"  said  Somerset. 

"Hush!"  she  whispered,  glancing  round;  "some- 
body will  hear.  Everything  is  gossiped  about  in 
this  place." 

"Well,  will  you  meet  me?"  the  young  man  per- 
sisted. 

"  If  I  can,"  she  sighed.  "  If  they  are  both  playing 
baccarat  I  may  shp  out  for  a  Uttle." 

"As  at  Spa." 

She  smiled  and  a  slight  flush  came  into  her  cheek. 

"Yes,  as  at  Spa.  Wait  for  me  on  the  plage  at  the 
bottom  of  the  Casino  steps.  Now  I  must  go  to  my 
mother.  She  would  not  like  to  see  me  talking  to 
you." 

'  *  The  Princess  hates  me  like  poison.  Do  you  know 
why?" 

"No,  and  you  are  not  going  to  tell  me,"  she  said 
demurely.    "Aw  revoir." 

When  she  had  passed  out  of  earshot,  Ross  touched 
the  young  man's  arm. 


186  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"I'm  afraid,  my  dear  Somerset,  you  are  playing  a 
particularly  silly  fool's  game." 

"Have  you  never  played  it?" 

"Heaven  forbid!" 

"  It  would  be  a  precious  sight  better  for  you  if  you 
had,"  growled  Somerset. 

"I'll  take  another  quinquina,"  said  Ross. 

"Did  you  see  the  way  in  which  the  brute  treated 
her?"  Somerset  exclaimed  angrily.  "  If  it's  like  that 
before  marriage,  what  will  it  be  after .^" 

"Plenty  of  money,  separate  estabhshments,  per- 
fect independence  and  happiness  for  each." 

Somerset  rose  from  the  table. 

"There  are  times,  my  good  Ross,"  said  he,  "when 
I  absolutely  hate  you." 

Somerset  had  first  met  the  Princess  Rabomirski 
and  her  daughter  three  years  before,  at  Spa.  They 
were  staying  at  the  same  hotel,  a  very  modest  one 
which,  to  Somerset's  mind,  ill-accorded  with  the 
Princess's  pretensions.  Bernheim  was  also  in  at- 
tendance, but  he  disposed  his  valet,  his  motor-car, 
and  himself  in  the  luxurious  Hotel  d'Orange,  as 
befitted  a  man  of  his  quahty;  also  he  was  in  at- 
tendance not  on  Ottilie,  but  on  the  Princess,  who 
at  that  time  was  three  years  yoimger  and  a  trifle  less 
painted.  Now,  at  lUerville-sur-Mer  the  trio  were 
stopping  at  the  Hotel  Splendide,  a  sumptuous 
hostelry  where  season  prices  were  far  above  Som- 
erset's moderate  means.  He  contented  himself 
with  the  little  hotel  next  door,  and  hated  the  Hotel 
Splendide  and  all  that  it  contained,  save  Ottihe, 
with  all  his  heart.    But  at  Spa,  the  Princess  was  evi- 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM         187 

dently  in  low  water  from  which  she  did  not  seem  to 
be  rescued  by  her  varying  luck  at  the  tables.  Ot- 
tihe  was  then  a  child  of  seventeen,  and  Somerset 
was  less  attracted  by  her  dehcate  beauty  than  by 
her  extraordinary  loneliness.  Day  after  day,  night 
after  night  he  would  come  upon  her  sitting  soKtary 
on  one  of  the  settees  in  the  gaming-rooms,  like  a 
forgotten  fan  or  flower,  or  wanderiag  wistfully  from 
table  to  table,  idly  watching  the  revolving  wheels. 
Sometimes  she  would  pause  behind  her  mother's 
or  Bemheim's  chair  to  watch  their  game;  but  the 
Princess  called  her  a  Httle  porte-malheur  and  would 
drive  her  away.  In  the  mornings,  or  on  other  rare 
occasions,  when  the  elder  inseparables  were  not  play- 
ing roulette,  Ottilie  hovered  round  them  at  a  distance, 
as  disregarded  as  a  shadow  that  followed  them  in 
space  of  less  dimensions,  as  it  were,  wherever  they 
went.  In  the  Casino  rooms,  if  men  spoke  to  her, 
she  rephed  in  shy  monosyllables  and  shrank  away. 
Somerset  who  had  made  regular  acquaintance  with 
the  Princess  at  the  hotel  and  taken  a  chivalrous  pity 
on  the  girl's  loneliness,  she  admitted  first  to  a  timid 
friendship,  and  then  to  a  childlike  intimacy.  Her 
face  would  brighten  and  her  heart  beat  a  little 
faster  when  she  saw  his  young,  well-knit  figure  ap- 
pear in  the  distance;  for  she  knew  he  would  come 
straight  to  her  and  take  her  from  the  hot  room, 
heavy  with  perfumes  and  tobacco,  on  to  the  cool 
balcony,  and  talk  of  all  manner  of  pleasant  things. 
And  Somerset  found  in  this  neglected,  httle  sham 
Princess  what  his  youth  was  pleased  to  designate  a 
flower-like  soul.    Those  were  idyUic  hours.    The 


188  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Princess,  glad  to  get  the  embarrassing  child  out  of 
the  way,  took  no  notice  of  the  intimacy.  Somerset 
fell  in  love. 

It  lasted  out  a  three-years'  separation,  during 
which  he  did  not  hear  from  her.  He  had  written  to 
several  addresses,  but  a  cold  Post  Office  returned  his 
letters  undehvered,  and  his  only  consolation  was  to 
piece  together  from  various  sources  the  unedifying 
histories  of  the  Princess  Rabomirski  and  the  Count 
Bemheim  of  the  Holy  Roman  Empire.  He  came 
to  Illerville-sur-Mer  for  an  August  holiday.  The 
first  thing  he  did  when  shown  into  his  hotel  bedroom 
was  to  gaze  out  of  window  at  the  beach  and  the  sea. 
The  first  person  his  eyes  rested  upon  was  the  Httle 
Princess  Ottilie  issuing,  alone  as  usual,  from  the 
doors  of  the  next  hotel. 

He  had  been  at  lUerville  a  fortnight  —  a  fortnight 
of  painful  joy.  Things  had  changed.  Their  in- 
terviews had  been  mostly  stolen,  for  the  Princess 
Rabomirski  had  rudely  declined  to  renew  the  ac- 
quaintance and  had  forbidden  Ottihe  to  speak  to 
him.  The  girl,  though  apparently  as  much  neglected 
as  evCT,  was  guarded  against  lum  with  pecuUar 
ingenuity.  Somerset,  aware  that  Ottilie,  now  grown 
from  a  child  into  an  exquisitely  beautiful  and  mar- 
riageable young  woman,  was  destined  by  a  hardened 
sumer  like  the  Princess  for  a  wealthier  husband  than 
a  poor  newspaper  man  with  no  particular  prospects, 
could  not,  however,  quite  understand  the  reasons 
for  the  virulent  hatred  of  which  he  was  the  object. 
He  overheard  the  Prhicess  one  day  cursing  her 
daughter  in  execrable  German  for  having  acknowl- 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM         189 

edged  his  bow  a  short  time  before.  Their  only  un- 
disturbed time  together  was  in  the  sea  during  the 
bathing  hour.  The  Princess,  hating  the  pebbly 
beach  which  cut  to  pieces  her  high-heeled  sho^, 
never  watched  the  bathers;  and  Bemheim  did  not 
bathe  (Somerset,  prejudiced,  declared  that  he  did 
not  even  wash)  but  remained  in  his  bedroom  till  the 
hour  of  dejeuner.  Ottilie,  attended  only  by  her 
maid,  came  down  to  the  water's  edge,  threw  off  her 
peignoir,  and,  plunging  into  the  water,  found  SomOT- 
set  waiting. 

Now  Somerset  was  a  strong  swimmer.  Moderately 
proficient  at  all  games  as  a  boy  and  an  under- 
graduate, he  had  found  that  swimming  was  the  only 
sport  in  which  he  excelled,  and  he  had  cultivated 
and  maintained  the  art.  Oddly  enough,  the  Uttle 
Princess  OttiHe,  in  spite  of  her  apparent  fragihty, 
was  also  an  excellent  and  fearless  swimmer.  She 
had  another  queer  delight  for  a  creature  so  daintily 
feminine,  the  salh  d'armes,  so  that  the  muscles  of 
her  yoimg  limbs  were  firm  and  well  ordered.  But 
the  sea  was  her  passion.  If  an  additional  bond  be- 
tween Somerset  and  herself  were  needed  it  would 
have  been  this.  Yet,  though  it  is  a  pleasant  thing 
to  swim  far  away  into  the  loneliness  of  the  sea  with 
the  object  of  one's  affections,  the  conditions  do  not 
encourage  sustained  conversation  on  subjects  of 
vital  interest.  On  the  day  when  Somerset  learned 
that  his  Httle  princess  was  engaged  to  Bemheim 
he  burned  to  tell  her  more  than  could  be  spluttered 
out  in  ten  fathoms  of  water.  So  he  urged  her  to  an 
assignation. 


190  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

At  half-past  ten  she  joined  him  at  the  bottom  of 
the  Casino  steps.  The  shingly  beach  was  deserted, 
but  on  the  terrace  above  the  throng  was  great,  owing 
to  the  breathless  heat  of  the  night. 

"Thank  Heaven  you  have  come,"  said  he.  "Do 
you  know  how  I  have  longed  for  you?" 

She  glanced  up  wistfully  into  his  face.  In  her 
simple  cream  dress  and  bmut  straw  hat  adorned  with 
white  roses  around  the  brim,  she  looked  very  fair  and 
childlike. 

"You  mustn't  say  such  things,"  she  whispered. 
"They  are  wrong  now.  I  am  engaged  to  be 
married." 

"I  won't  hear  of  it,"  said  Somerset.  "It  is  a 
horrible  nightmare  —  your  engagement.  Don't  you 
know  that  I  love  you.^^  I  loved  you  the  first  minute 
I  set  my  eyes  on  you  at  Spa." 

Princess  Ottilie  sighed,  and  they  walked  along  the 
boards  behind  the  bathing-machines,  and  down  the 
rattling  beach  to  the  shelter  of  a  fishing  boat,  where 
they  sat  down,  screened  from  the  world  with  the 
murmuring  sea  in  front  of  them.  Somerset  talked  of 
his  love  and  the  hatefulness  of  Bemheim.  The  httle 
Princess  sighed  again. 

"  I  have  worse  news  still,"  she  said.  "  It  will  pain 
you.  We  are  going  to  Paris  to-morrow,  and  then  on 
to  Aix-les-Bains.  They  have  just  decided.  They 
say  the  baccarat  here  is  silly,  and  they  might  as  well 
play  for  bon-bons.  So  we  must  say  good-bye  to- 
night —  and  it  will  be  good-bye  for  always." 

"I  will  come  to  Aix-les-Bains,"  said  Somerset. 

"No  —  no,"  she  answered  quickly.    "It  would 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM         191 

only  bring  trouble  on  me  and  do  no  good.  We  must 
part  to-night.    Don't  /ou  thiiA  it  hurts  me?" 

"But  you  must  love  me,"  said  Somerset. 

"  I  do,"  she  said  simply,  "  and  that  is  why  it  hurts. 
Now  I  must  be  going  back." 

"OttiKe,"  said  Somerset,  grasping  her  hands: 
"Need  you  ever  go  back?" 

"What  do  you  mean?"  he  asked. 

"  Come  away  from  this  hateful  place  with  me  — 
now,  this  minute.  You  need  never  see  Bemheim 
again  as  long  as  you  Uve.  Listen.  My  friend 
Ross  has  a  motor-car.  I  can  manage  it  —  so  there 
will  be  only  us  two.  Run  into  your  hotel  for  a  thick 
cloak,  and  meet  me  as  quickly  as  you  can  behind  the 
^  tennis-courts.  If  we  go  full  speed  we'U  catch  the 
night-boat  at  Dieppe.  It  wiU  be  a  wild  race  for 
our  life  happiness.    Come." 

In  his  excitement  he  rose  and  pulled  her  to  her  feet. 
They  faced  each  other  for  a  few  glorious  moments, 
panting  for  breath,  and  then  Princess  Ottilie  broke 
down  and  cried  bitterly. 

"I  can't  dear,  I  can't.  I  must  marry  Bemheim. 
It  is  to  save  my  mother  from  something  dreadful. 
I  don't  know  what  it  is  —  but  she  went  on  her  knees 
to  me,  and  I  promised." 

"  If  there's  a  woman  in  Europe  capable  of  getting 
out  of  her  difficulties  unaided  it  is  the  Princess  Rabo- 
mirski,"  said  Somerset.  "I  am  not  going  to  let  you 
be  sold.  You  are  mine,  Ottilie,  and  by  Heaven,  I'm 
going  to  have  you.    Come." 

He  urged,  he  pleaded,  he  put  his  strong  arms 
around  her  as  if  he  would  carry  her  away  bodily. 


192  FAR-AWAY  STORIES       -' 

He  did  everything  that  a  frantic  young  man  could 
do.  But  the  more  the  little  Princess  wept,  the  more 
inflexible  she  became.  Somerset  had  not  realized 
before  this  steel  in  her  nature.  Raging  and  ve- 
hemently urging  he  accompanied  her  back  to  the 
Casino  steps. 

"Would  you  like  to  say  good-bye  to  me  to-morrow 
morning,  instead  of  to-night?"  she  asked,  holding 
out  her  hand. 

"I  am  never  going  to  say  good-bye,"  cried 
Somerset. 

"I  shall  slip  out  to-morrow  morning  for  a  last 
swim  —  at  six  o'clock,"  she  said,  unheeding  his 
exclamation.  "Our  train  goes  at  ten."  Then  she 
came  very  close  to  him. 

"  Vince  dear,  if  you  love  me,  don't  make  me  more 
unhappy  than  I  am." 

It  was  an  appeal  to  his  chivalry.  He  kissed  her 
hand,  and  said: 

"At  six  o'clock." 

But  Somerset  had  no  intention  of  bidding  her  a 
final  farewell  in  the  morning.  If  he  followed  her  the 
worid  over  he  would  snatch  her  out  of  the  arms  of  the 
accursed  Bemheim  and  marry  her  by  main  force. 
As  for  the  foreign  telegrams  of  The.  Daily  Post,  he 
cared  not  how  iJhey  would  be  sub-edited.  He  went 
to  bed  with  lofty  disregard  of  Fleet  Street  and  bread 
and  butter.  As  for  the  shame  from  which  OttiUe's 
marriage  would  save  her  sainted  mother,  he  did  not 
believe  a  word  of  it.  She  was  selling  Ottilie  to 
Bemheim  for  cash  down.  He  stayed  awake  most 
of  the  night  plotting  schemes  for  the  rescue  of  his 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM         193 

Princess.  It  would  be  an  excellent  plan  to  insult 
Bemheim  and  slay  him  outright  in  a  duel.  Its 
disadvantages  lay  in  his  own  imperfections  as  a 
duellist,  and  for  the  first  time  he  ciu^ed  the  benign 
laws  of  his  country.  At  length  he  feU  asleep;  woke 
up  to  find  it  dayhght,  and  leaped  to  his  feet  in  a 
horrible  scare.  But  a  sight  of  his  watch  reassured 
him.  It  was  only  five  o'clock.  At  half-past  he 
put  on  a  set  of  bathing  things  and  sat  down  by  the 
window  to  watch  the  hall  door  of  the  Hotel  Splendide. 
At  six,  out  came  the  familiar  figure  of  the  Kttle 
Princess,  draped  in  her  white  peignoir.  She  glanced 
up  at  Somerset's  window.  He  waved  his  hand,  and 
in  a  minute  or  two  they  were  standing  side  by  side 
at  the  water's  edge.  It  was  far  away  from  the  regu- 
lar bathing-place  marked  by  the  bathing  cabins, 
and  further  still  from  the  fishing  end  of  the  beach 
where  alone  at  that  early  hour  were  signs  of  life 
visible.  The  town  behind  them  slept  in  warmth 
and  fight.  The  sea  stretched  out  blue  before  them 
unrippled  in  the  still  air.  A  little  bank  of  purple 
cloud  on  the  horizon  presaged  a  burning  day. 

The  little  Princess  dropped  her  peignoir  and  kicked 
off  her  straw-soled  shoes,  and  gave  her  hand  to  her 
companion.  He  glanced  at  the  fittle  white  feet 
which  he  was  tempted  to  fall  down  and  kiss,  and  then 
at  the  wistful  face  below  the  blue-silk  foulard  knotted 
in  front  over  the  bathing-cap.  His  heart  leaped  at 
her  bewildering  sweetness.  She  was  the  morning 
incarnate. 

She  read  his  eyes  and  flushed  pink. 

"Let  us  go  in,"  she  said. 


194  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

They  waded  in  together,  hand-in-hand,  until 
they  were  waist  deep.  Then  they  struck  out,  mak- 
ing for  the  open  sea.  The  sting  of  the  night  had 
akeady  passed  from  the  water.  To  their  young 
blood  it  felt  warm.  They  swam  near  together, 
Ottihe  using  a  steady  breast  stroke  and  Somerset  a 
side  stroke,  so  that  he  could  look  at  her  flushed  and 
ghstening  face.  From  the  blue  of  the  sea  and  the 
blue  of  the  sky  to  the  light  blue  of  the  silk  foulard, 
the  blue  of  her  eyes  grew  magically  deep. 

"There  seems  to  be  nothing  but  you  and  me  in 
God's  universe,  Ottilie,"  said  he.  She  smiled  at 
him.    He  drew  quite  close  to  her. 

"  If  we  could  only  go  on  straight  until  we  found 
an  enchanted  island  which  we  could  have  as  our 
kingdom." 

"The  sea  must  be  our  kingdom,"  said  Ottilie. 

"  Or  its  depths.  Shall  we  dive  down  and  look  for 
the  'ceiling  of  amber,  the  pavement  of  pearl,'  and  the 
*red  gold  throne  in  the  heart  of  the  sea'  for  the  two 
of  us?" 

"We  should  be  happier  than  in  the  world,"  replied 
the  httle  Princess. 

They  swam  on  slowly,  dreamily,  in  silence.  The 
mild  waves  lapped  against  their  ears  and  their 
mouths.  The  morning  sun  lay  at  their  backs,  and 
its  radiance  fell  athwart  the  bay.  Through  the 
stillness  came  the  faint  echo  of  a  fisherman  on  the 
far  beach  hammering  at  his  boat.  Beyond  that  and 
the  gentle  swirl  of  the  water  there  was  no  sound. 
After  a  while  they  altered  their  course  so  as  to  reach 
a  small  boat  that  lay  at  anchor  for  the  conven- 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM         195 

ience  of  the  stronger  swimmers.  They  clambered 
up  and  sat  on  the  gunwale,  their  feet  dangling  in 
the  sea. 

"Is  my  princess  tired.^"  he  asked. 

She  laughed  in  merry  scorn. 

"Tired.**  Why,  I  could  swim  twenty  times  as  far. 
Do  you  think  I  have  no  muscle  .►*  Feel.  Don't  you 
know  I  fence  all  the  winter.^ " 

She  braced  her  bare  arm.  He  felt  the  muscle; 
then,  relaxing  it,  by  drawing  down  her  wrist,  he 
kissed  it  very  gently. 

"Soft  and  strong  —  like  yourself,"  said  he.  Ot- 
tilie  said  nothing,  but  looked  at  her  white  feet  through 
the  transparent  water.  She  thought  that  in  letting 
him  kiss  her  arm  and  feeling  as  though  he  had  kissed 
right  through  to  her  heart,  she  was  exhibiting  a 
pitiful  lack  of  strength.  Somerset  looked  at  her 
askance,  uncertain.  For  nothing  in  the  world  would 
he  have  offended. 

"Did  you  mmd.3"  he  whispered. 

She  shook  her  head  and  continued  to  look  at  her 
feet.  Somerset  felt  a  great  happiness  pulse  through 
him. 

"If  I  gave  you  up,"  said  he,  "I  should  be  the 
poorest  spirited  dog  that  ever  whined." 

"Hush!"  she  said,  putting  her  hand  in  his.  "Let 
us  think  only  of  the  present  happiness." 

They  sat  silent  for  a  moment,  contemplating  the 
little  red-roofed  town  and  Illerville-sur-Mer,  which 
nestled  in  greenery  beyond  the  white  sweep  of  the 
beach,  and  the  rococo  hotels  and  the  casino,  whose 
cupolas  flashed  gaudily  in  the  morning  sun.    From 


196  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

the  north-eastern  end  of  the  bay  stretched  a  long 
Ime  of  sheer  white  chff  as  far  as  the  eye  could  reach. 
Towards  the  west  it  was  bounded  by  a  narrow  head- 
land rmming  far  out  to  sea. 

"  It  looks  like  a  frivolous  httle  Garden  of  Eden," 
said  Somerset,  "but  I  wish  we  could  never  set  foot 
in  it  again." 

"Let  us  dive  in  and  forget  it,"  said  Ottilie. 

She  shpped  into  the  water.  Somerset  stood  on  the 
gunwale  and  dived.  When  he  came  up  and  had 
shaken  the  salt  water  from  his  nostrils,  he  joined  her 
in  two  or  three  strokes. 

"  Let  us  go  round  the  point  to  the  little  beach  the 
other  side." 

She  hesitated.  It  would  take  a  long  time  to  swim 
there,  rest,  and  swim  back.  Her  absence  might  be 
noticed.  But  she  felt  reckless.  Let  her  drink  this 
hour  of  happiness  to  the  full.  What  mattered  any- 
thing that  could  follow?  She  smiled  assent,  and  they 
struck  out  steadily  for  the  point.  It  was  good  to 
have  the  salt  smell  and  the  taste  of  the  brine  and  the 
pleasant  smart  of  the  eyes;  and  to  feel  their  mastery 
of  the  sea.  As  they  threw  out  their  flashing  white 
arms  and  topped  each  tiny  wave  they  smiled  in 
exultation.  To  them  it  seemed  impossible  that 
anyone  could  drown.  For  the  buoyant  hour  they 
were  creatures  of  the  element.  Now  and  then  a 
gull  circled  before  them,  looked  at  them  unconcerned, 
as  if  they  were  in  some  way  his  kindred,  and  swept 
off  into  the  distance.  A  tired  white  butterfly 
settled  for  a  moment  on  Ottilie's  head;  then  Hght- 
heartedly  fluttered  away  sea-wards  to  its  doom. 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM         197 

They  swam  on  and  on,  and  they  neared  the  point. 
They  slackened  for  a  moment,  and  he  brought  his 
face  close  to  hers. 

"If  I  said  'Let  us  swim  on  for  ever  and  ever,* 
would  you  do  it?" 

"Yes,"  she  said,  looking  deep  into  his  eyes. 

After  a  while  they  floated  restfully.  The  last  ques- 
tion and  answer  seemed  to  have  brought  them  a 
great  peace.  They  were  conscious  of  httle  save  the 
mystery  of  the  cloudless  ether  above  their  faces  and 
the  infinite  sea  that  murmured  in  their  ears  strange 
harmonies  of  Love  and  Death  —  harmonies  woven 
from  the  human  yearnings  of  every  shore  and  the 
hushed  secrets  of  eternal  time.  So  close  were  they 
bodily  together  that  now  and  then  hand  touched 
hand  and  limb  brushed  limb.  A  happy  stillness  of 
the  soul  spread  its  wings  over  them  and  they  felt  it 
to  be  a  consecration  of  their  love.  Presently  his 
arm  sought  her,  encircled  her,  brought  her  head  on 
his  shoulder. 

"Rest  a  little,"  he  whispered. 

She  closed  her  eyes,  surrendered  her  innocent  self 
to  the  flooding  rapture  of  the  moment.  The  horrors 
that  awaited  her  passed  from  her  brain.  He  had 
come  to  the  lonely  child  like  a  god  out  of  heaven. 
He  had  come  to  the  frightened  girl  like  a  new  terror. 
He  was  by  her  side  now,  the  man  whom  of  aU  men 
God  had  made  to  accompHsh  her  womanhood  and 
to  take  aU  of  soul  and  body,  sense  and  brain  that  she 
had  to  give.  Their  salt  Hps  met  in  a  first  kiss. 
Words  would  have  broken  the  spell  of  the  enchant- 
ment cast  over  them  by  the  infinite  spaces  of  sea  and 


198  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

sky.  They  drifted  on  and  on,  the  subtle,  subcon- 
scious movement  of  foot  and  hand  keeping  them 
afloat.  The  little  Princess  moved  closer  to  hiin  so 
as  to  feel  more  secure  around  her  the  circling  pres- 
sure of  his  arm.  He  laughed  a  man's  short,  exultant 
laugh,  and  gripped  her  more  tightly.  Never  had  he 
felt  his  strength  more  sure.  His  right  arm  and  his 
legs  beat  rhythmically  and  he  felt  the  pulsation  of 
the  measured  strokes  of  his  companion's  feet  and  the 
water  swirled  past  his  head,  so  that  he  knew  they 
were  making  way  most  swiftly.  Of  exertion  there 
was  no  sense  whatever.  He  met  her  eyes  fixed 
through  half-shut  Uds  upon  his  face.  Her  soft  young 
body  melted  into  his.  He  lost  count  of  time  and 
space.  Now  and  then  a  little  wave  broke  over  their 
faces,  and  they  laughed  and  cleared  the  brine  from 
their  mouths  and  drew  more  close  together. 

"If  it  wasn't  for  that,"  she  whispered  once,  "I 
could  go  to  sleep." 

Soon  they  felt  the  gentle  rocking  of  the  sea  increase 
and  waves  broke  more  often  over  them.  Somerset 
was  the  first  to  note  the  change.  Loosening  his 
hold  of  Ottihe,  he  trod  water  and  looked  around. 
To  his  amazement  they  were  stiU  abreast  of  the  point, 
but  far  out  to  sea.  He  gazed  at  it  uncompre- 
hendingly  for  an  instant,  and  then  a  sudden  recol- 
lection smote  him  like  a  message  of  death.  They 
had  caught  the  edge  of  the  current  against  which 
swimmers  were  warned,  and  the  current  held  them 
in  its  grip  and  was  sweeping  them  on  while  they 
floated  foohshly.  A  swift  glance  at  Ottilie  showed 
him  that  she   too   realized   the  peril.    With  the 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM  199 

outcoming  tide  it  was  almost  impossible  to  reach 
the  shore. 

"Are  you  afraid?"  he  asked. 

She  shook  her  head.    "Not  with  you." 

He  scamied  the  land  and  the  sea.  On  the  arc  of 
their  horizon  lay  the  black  hull  of  a  tramp  steamer 
going  eastwards.  Far  away  to  the  west  was  a  speck 
of  white  and  against  the  pale  sky  a  film  of  smoke. 
Landwards  beyond  the  shimmering  water  stretched 
the  simny  bay  of  the  casino.  Its  gilt  cupolas  shot 
tiny  flames.  The  green-topped  point,  its  hither  side 
deep  in  shadow,  reached  out  helplessly  for  them. 
Somerset  and  Ottilie  still  paused,  doing  nothing 
more  than  keeping  themselves  afloat,  and  they  felt 
the  current  drifting  them  ever  seawards. 

"It  looks  like  death,"  he  said  gravely.  "Are 
you  afraid  to  die?" 

Again  Ottilie  said,  "Not  with  you." 

He  looked  at  the  land,  and  he  looked  at  the  white 
speck  and  the  puif  of  smoke.  Then  suddenly  his 
heart  leaped  with  the  thrilling  inspiration  of  a  wild 
impossibility. 

"Let  us  leave  lUerviUe  and  France  behind  us. 
Death  is  as  certain  either  way." 

The  little  Princess  looked  at  him  wonderingly. 

"Where  are  we  going?" 

"To  England." 

"Anywhere  but  Iflerville,"  she  said. 

He  struck  out  seawards,  she  foUowed.  Each  saw 
the  other's  face  white  and  set.  They  had  current 
and  tide  with  them,  they  swam  steadily,  undis- 
tressed.    After  a  silence  she  caUed  to  him. 


200  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"Vince,  if  we  go  to  our  kingdom  under  the  sea, 
you  will  take  me  down  in  your  arms?" 

"  In  a  last  kiss,"  he  said. 

He  had  heard  (as  who  has  not)  of  Love  being 
stronger  than  Death.  Now  he  knew  its  truth. 
But  he  swore  to  himseK  a  great  oath  that  they  should 
not  die. 

"I  shall  take  my  princess  to  a  better  kingdom," 
he  said  later. 

Presently  he  heard  her  breathing  painfully.  She 
could  not  hold  out  much  longer. 

"I  will  carry  you,"  he  said. 

An  expert  swimmer,  she  knew  the  way  to  hold  his 
shoulders  and  leave  his  arms  unimpeded.  The 
contact  of  her  hght  young  form  against  his  body 
thrilled  him  and  redoubled  his  strength.  He  held 
his  head  for  a  second  high  out  of  the  water  and  turned 
half  roimd. 

"Do  you  think  I  am  going  to  let  you  die  —  now.^" 

The  white  speck  had  grown  into  a  white  hull,  and 
Somerset  was  making  across  its  track.  To  do  so  he 
must  deflect  sHghtly  from  the  line  of  the  current. 
His  great  battle  began. 

He  swam  doggedly,  steadily,  husbanding  his 
strength.  If  the  vessel  justified  his  first  flash  of 
inspiration,  and  if  he  could  reach  her,  he  knew  how 
he  should  act.  As  best  he  could,  for  it  was  no  time 
for  speech,  he  told  Ottilie  his  hopes.  He  felt  the 
spray  from  her  Kps  upon  his  cheek,  as  she  said: 

"  It  seems  sinful  to  wish  for  greater  happiness  than 
this." 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM  201 

After  that  there  was  utter  silence  between  them. 
At  first  he  thought  exultingly  of  Bemheim  and  the 
Princess  Rabomirski,  and  the  rage  of  their  wicked 
hearts;  of  the  future  glorified  by  his  little  Princess 
of  the  unconquerable  soul:  of  the  present's  mystic 
consummation  of  their  marriage.  But  gradually 
mental  concepts  lost  sharpness  of  defiaiition.  Sensa- 
tion began  to  merge  itself  into  a  half-consciousness 
of  stroke  on  stroke  through  the  illimitable  waste. 
Despite  the  laughing  morning  sunshine,  the  sky  be- 
came dark  and  lowering.  The  weight  on  his  neck 
grew  heavier.  At  first  Ottihe  had  only  rested  her 
arms.  Now  her  feet  were  as  lead  and  sank  behind 
him;  her  clasp  tightened  about  his  shoulders.  He 
struggled  on  through  a  welter  of  sea  and  mist. 
Strange  soimds  sang  in  his  ears,  as  if  over  them  had 
been  clamped  great  sea-shells.  At  each  short  breath 
his  throat  gulped  down  bitter  water.  A  horrible 
pain  crept  across  his  chest.  His  limbs  seemed 
paralysed  and  yet  he  remained  above  the  surface. 
The  benumbed  brain  wondered  at  the  miracle.  .  .  . 

The  universe  broke  upon  his  vision  as  a  blurred 
mass  of  green  and  white.  He  recognised  it  vaguely 
as  his  kingdom  beneath  the  sea,  and  as  in  a  dream 
he  remembered  his  promise.  He  slipped  round. 
His  hps  met  Ottihe's.  His  arms  wound  round  about 
her,  and  he  sank,  holding  her  tightly  clasped. 

Strange  things  happened.  He  was  pulled  hither 
and  thither  by  sea  monsters  welcoming  him  to  his 
kingdom.  In  a  confused  way  he  wondered  that  he 
could  breathe  so  freely  in  the  depths  of  the  ocean. 


202  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Unutterable  happiness  stole  upon  him.  The  King- 
dom was  real.  His  sham  Princess  would  be  queen 
in   very  truth.    But  where  was  she? 

He  opened  his  eyes  and  found  himself  lying  on  the 
deck  of  a  ship.  A  couple  of  men  were  doing  funny 
things  to  his  arms.  A  rosy-faced  man  in  white 
ducks  and  a  yachting  cap  stood  over  him  with  a  glass 
of  brandy.  When  he  had  drunk  the  spirit,  the  rosy 
man  laughed. 

"That  was  a  narrow  shave.  We  got  you  just  in 
time.  We  were  nearly  right  on  you.  The  young 
woman  is  doing  well.     My  wife  is  looking  after  her." 

As  soon  as  he  could  collect  his  faculties,  Somerset 
asked, 

"Are  you  the  Mavis?'* 

"Yes." 

"  I  felt  sure  of  it.    Are  you  Sir  Henry  Ransopie?" 

"That's  my  name." 

"  I  heard  you  were  expected  at  Illerville  to-day," 
said  Somerset.     "That  is  why  I  made  for  you." 

The  two  men  who  had  been  doing  queer  things 
with  his  arms  wrapped  him  in  a  blanket  and  propped 
him  up  against  the  deck  cabin. 

"But  what  on  earth  were  you  two  young  people 
doing  in  the  middle  of  the  EngUsh  Channel.^"  asked 
the  owner  of  the  Mavis. 

"We  were  eloping,"  said  Somerset. 

The  other  looked  at  him  for  a  bewildered  moment 
and  burst  into  a  roar  of  laughter.  He  tinned  to  the 
cabin  door  and  disappeared,  to  emerge  a  moment 
afterwards  followed  by  a  lady  in  a  morning  wrap- 
per. 


THE  PRINCESS'S  KINGDOM  203 

"What  do  you  think,  Marian?  It's  an  elope-' 
ment." 

Somerset  smiled  at  them. 

"Have  you  ever  heard  of  the  Princess  Rabo- 
mirski?  You  have?  Well,  this  is  her  daughter. 
Perhaps  you  know  of  the  Count  Bemheim  who  is 
always  about  with  the  Princess?" 

"  I  trod  on  him  last  winter  at  Monte  Carlo,"  said 
Sir  Henry  Ransome. 

"He  survives,"  said  Somerset,  "and  has  bought 
the  Princess  Ottilie  from  her  mother.  He's  not 
going  to  get  her.  She  belongs  to  me.  My  name  is 
Somerset,  and  I  am  foreign  sub-editor  of  the  Daily 
Postr 

^  "I  am  very  pleased  to  make  your  acquaintance, 
Mr.  Somerset,"  said  Sir  Henry  with  a  smile.  "And 
now  what  can  I  do  for  you?" 

"  If  you  can  lend  us  some  clothes  and  take  us  to 
any  part  on  earth  save  Illerville-sur-Mer,  you  will 
earn  our  eternal  gratitude." 

Sir  Henry  looked  doubtful.  "We  have  made  our 
arrangements  for  lUerviUe,"  said  he. 

His  wife  broke  in. 

"  If  you  don't  take  these  romantic  beings  straight 
to  Southampton,  I'll  never  set  my  foot  upon  this 
yacht  again." 

"  It  was  you,  my  dear,  who  were  crazy  to  come  to 
lUerville." 

"Don't  you  think,"  said  Lady  Ransome,  "you 
might  provide  Mr.  Somerset  with  some  dry 
things?" 


204  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Four  hours  afterwards  Somerset  sat  on  deck  by 
the  side  of  Ottilie,  who,  warmly  wrapped,  lay  on  a 
long  chair.  He  pointed  to  the  far-away  coastline  of 
the  Isle  of  Wight. 

"Behold  our  kingdom!"  said  he. 

The  Uttle  Princess  laughed. 

"That  is  not  our  kingdom." 

"WeU,  what  is?" 

"Just  the  httle  bit  of  space  that  contains  both  you 
and  me,"  she  said. 


THE  HEART  AT  TWENTY 


THE  HEART  AT  TWENTY 

THE  girl  stood  at  the  end  of  the  Uttle  stone 
jetty,  her  hair  and  the  ends  of  her  cheap  fur 
boa  and  her  skirts  all  fluttering  behind  her 
in  the  stiff  north-east  gale.  Why  anyone  should 
choose  to  stand  on  a  jetty  on  a  raw  December  after- 
noon with  the  wind  in  one's  teeth  was  a  difficult 
problem  for  a  comfort-loving,  elderly  man  like  myself, 
and  I  pondered  over  it  as  I  descended  the  slope  lead- 
ing from  the  village  to  the  sea.  It  was  nothing, 
thought  I,  but  youth's  animal  dehght  in  physical 
things.  A  few  steps,  however,  brought  me  in  view 
of  her  face  in  half-profile,  and  I  saw  that  she  did  not 
notice  wind  or  spray,  but  was  staring  out  to  sea  with 
an  intolerable  wistfulness.  A  quick  turn  in  the  path 
made  me  lose  the  profile.  I  crossed  the  road  that 
ran  along  the  shore  and  walked  rapidly  along  the 
jetty.    Arriving  within  haihng  distance  I  called  her. 

"Pauhne." 

She  pivoted  round  Hke  a  weather-cock  in  a  gust 
and  with  a  sharp  cry  leaped  forward  to  meet  me. 
Her  face  was  aflame  with  great  hope  and  joy.  I 
have  seen  to  my  gladness  that  expression  once  before 
worn  by  a  woman.  But  as  soon  as  this  one  recog- 
nised me,  the  joy  vanished,  killed  outright. 

207 


208  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"Oh,  it's  you,"  she  said,  with  a  quivering  lip. 

"I  am  sorry,  my  dear,"  said  I,  taking  her  hand. 
"I  can't  help  it.  I  wish  from  my  heart  I  were 
somebody  else." 

She  burst  into  tears.  I  put  my  arm  aroimd  her  and 
drew  her  to  me,  and  patted  her  and  said  "  There, 
there!"  in  the  blundering  mascuhne  way.  Having 
helped  to  bring  her  into  the  world  twenty  years  be- 
fore, I  could  claim  fatherly  privileges. 

"Oh,  Doctor,"  she  sobbed,  dabbing  her  pretty 
young  eyes  with  a  handkerchief.  "Do  forgive  me. 
Of  course  I  am  glad  to  see  you.  It  was  the  shock. 
I  thought  you  were  a  ghost.  No  one  ever  comes  to 
Ravetot." 

"Never?"  I  asked  mildly. 

The  tears  flowed  afresh.  I  leaned  against  the 
parapet  of  the  jetty  for  comfort's  sake,  and  looked 
aroimd  me.  Ravetot-sur-Mer  was  not  the  place  to 
attract  visitors  in  December.  A  shingle  beach  with 
a  few  fishing-boats  hauled  out  of  reach  of  the  surf; 
a  miniatiu-e  casino,  like  an  impudently  large  summer- 
house,  shuttered-up,  weather-beaten  and  desolate; 
a  weather-beaten,  desolate,  and  shuttered-up  Hotel 
de  rUnivers,  and  a  perky  deserted  villa  or  two  on 
the  embankment;  a  chff  behind  them,  topped  by  a 
htlle  grey  church;  the  road  that  led  up  the  gorge 
losing  itself  in  the  turn  —  and  that  was  all  that  was 
visible  of  Ravetot-sur-Mer.  A  projecting  cliff 
bounded  the  bay  at  each  side,  and  in  front  seethed 
the  grey,  angry  Channel.  It  was  an  Aceldama  of  a 
spot  in  winter;  and  only  a  matter  of  peculiar  urgency 
had  brought  me  hither.     Pauline  and  her  decrepit 


THE  HEART  AT  TWENTY  209 

rascal  of  a  father  were  tied  to  Ravetot  by  sheer 
poverty.  He  owned  a  pretty  villa  half  a  mile  in- 
land, and  the  rent  he  obtained  for  it  during  the  sum- 
mer enabled  them  to  live  in  some  miraculous  way  the 
rest  of  the  year.  They,  the  Cure  and  the  fisher-folk, 
were  the  sole  winter  inhabitants  of  the  place.  The 
nearest  doctor  hved  at  Merville,  twenty  kilometres 
away,  and  there  was  not  even  an  educated  farmer  in 
the  neighbourhood.  Yet  I  could  not  help  thinking 
that  my  Uttle  friend's  last  remark  was  somewhat  dis- 
ingenuous. 

"Are  you  quite  sure,  my  dear,"  I  said,  "that  no 
one  ever  comes  to  Ravetot.*^" 

"Has  father  told  you.^"  she  asked  tonelessly. 

"No.  I  guessed  it.  I  have  extraordruary  powers 
of  divination.  And  the  Somebody  has  been  making 
my  little  girl  miserable." 

"He  has  broken  my  heart,"  said  Pauline. 

I  pulled  the  collar  of  my  fur-lined  coat  above  my 
ears  which  the  north-east  wind  was  biting.  Being 
elderly  and  heart-whole  I  am  sensitive  to  cold.  I 
proposed  that  we  should  walk  up  and  down  the  jetty 
while  she  told  me  her  troubles,  and  I  hooked  her  arm 
in  mine. 

"Who  was  he.^"  I  asked.  "And  what  was  he 
doing  here.*^" 

"Oh,  Doctor!  what  does  it  matter.^"  she  answered 
tearfully.    "  I  never  want  to  see  him  again." 

"Don't  fib,"  said  I.  "If  the  confounded  black- 
guard were  here  now " 

"  But  he  isn't  a  blackguard ! "  she  flashed.  "  If  he 
were  I  shouldn't  be  so  miserable.    I  should  forget 


210  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

him.  He  is  good  and  kind,  and  noble,  and  every- 
thing that  is  right.  I  couldn't  have  expected  him 
to  act  otherwise  —  it  was  awful,  horrible  —  and 
when  you  called  me  byname  I  thought  it  was  he " 

"And  the  contradictious  feminine  did  very  much 
want  to  see  him?"  said  I. 

"I  suppose  so,"  she  confessed. 

I  looked  down  at  her  pretty  face  and  saw  that  it 
was  wan  and  pinched. 

"You  have  been  eating  little  and  sleeping  less. 
For  how  long?"  I  demanded  sternly. 

"For  a  week,"  she  said  pitifully. 

"We  must  change  all  that.  This  abominable  hole 
is  a  kind  of  cold  storage  for  depression." 

She  drew  my  arm  tighter.  She  had  always  been  an 
affectionate  little  girl,  and  now  she  seemed  to  crave 
human  sympathy  and  companionship. 

"I  don't  mind  it  now.  It  doesn't  in  the  least 
matter  where  I  am.  Before  he  came  I  used  to  hate 
Ravetot,  and  long  for  the  gaiety  and  brightness  of 
the  great  world.  I  used  to  stand  here  for  hours  and 
just  long  and  long  for  something  to  happen  to  take 
us  away;  and  it  seemed  no  good.  Here  I  was  for 
the  rest  of  time  —  with  nothing  to  do  day  after  day 
but  housework  and  sewing  and  reading,  while  father 
sat  by  the  fire,  with  his  Httle  roulette  machine  and 
Monte  Carlo  averages  and  paper  and  pencil,  working 
out  the  wonderful  system  that  is  going  to  make  our 
fortune.  We'U  never  have  enough  money  to  go  to 
Monte  Carlo  for  him  to  try  it,  so  that  is  some  com- 
fort. One  would  have  thought  he  had  had  enough 
of  gambling." 


THE  HEART  AT  TWENTY  211 

She  made  the  allusion,  very  siiUply,  to  me — an  old 
friend.  Her  father  had  gambled  away  a  fortime, 
and  in  desperation  had  forged  another  man's  name 
on  the  back  of  a  bill,  for  which  he  had  suffered  a  term 
of  imprisonment.  His  relatives  had  cast  him  out. 
That  was  why  he  lived  in  poverty-stricken  seclusion 
at  Ravetot-sur-Mer.  He  was  not  an  estimable  old 
man,  and  I  had  always  pitied  Pauline  for  being  so 
parented.  Her  mother  had  died  years  ago.  I 
thought  I  would  avoid  the  painful  topic. 

"And  so,"  said  I,  after  we  had  gone  the  length  of 
the  jetty  in  silence  and  had  turned  again,  "one  day 
when  the  lonely  little  princess  was  staring  out  to  sea 
and  longing  for  she  knew  not  what,  the  young  prince 
out  6i  the  fairy  tale  came  riding  up  behind  her  — 
and  stayed  just  long  enough  to  make  her  lose  her 
heart  —  and  then  rode  off  again." 

"Something  like  it  —  only  worse,"  she  murmured. 
And  then,  with  a  sudden  break  in  her  voice,  "  I  will 
tell  you  all  about  it.  I  shall  go  mad  if  I  don't.  I 
haven't  a  soul  in  the  world  to  speak  to.  Yes.  He 
came.  He  found  me  standing  at  the  end  of  the  jetty. 
He  asked  his  way,  in  French,  to  the  cemetery,  and  I 
recognised  from  his  accent  that  he  was  Enghsh  like 
myself.  I  asked  him  why  he  wanted  to  go  to  the 
cemetery.  He  said  that  it  was  to  see  his  wife's 
grave.  The  only  EngHshwoman  buried  here  was  a 
Mrs.  Everest,  who  was  drowned  last  summer.  This 
was  the  husband.  He  explained  that  he  was  in  the  In- 
dian Civil  Service,  was  now  on  leave.  Being  in  Paris 
he  thought  he  would  like  to  come  to  Ravetot,  where 
he  could  have  quiet,  in  order  to  write  a  book." 


212  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

"I  understood  it  was  to  see  his  wife's  grave,"  I 
remarked. 

"  He  wanted  to  do  that  as  well.  You  see,  they  had 
been  separated  for  some  years  —  judicially  sep- 
arated. She  was  not  a  nice  woman.  He  didn't  tell 
me  so;  he  was  too  chivalrous  a  gentleman.  But  I 
had  learned  about  her  from  the  gossip  of  the  place. 
I  walked  with  him  to  the  cemetery.  I  know  a  well- 
brought-up  girl  wouldn't  have  gone  ojBF  like  that  with 
a  stranger." 

"  My  dear,"  said  I,  "in  Ravetot-sur-Mer  she  would 
have  gone  off  with  a  hippogriffin." 

She  pressed  my  arm.  "How  understanding  you 
are,  doctor,  dear." 

"I  have  an  inkling  of  the  laws  that  govern  hu- 
manity," I  rephed.  "Well,  and  after  the  pleasant 
trip  to  the  cemetery.!^" 

"He  asked  me  whether  the  cafe  at  the  top  of  the 
hill  was  really  the  only  place  to  stay  at  in  Ravetot. 
It's  dreadful,  you  know  —  no  one  goes  there  but 
fishermen  and  farm  labourers  —  and  it  is  the  only 
place.  The  hotel  is  shut  up  out  of  the  season.  I 
said  that  Ravetot  didn't  encourage  visitors  during 
the  winter.  He  looked  disappointed,  and  said  that 
he  would  have  to  find  quiet  somewhere  else.  Then 
he  asked  whether  there  wasn't  any  house  that  would 
take  him  in  as  a  boarderP  " 

She  paused. 

"Well?"  I  enquired. 

"  Oh,  doctor,  he  seemed  so  strong  and  kind,  and  his 
eyes  were  so  frank.  I  knew  he  was  everything  that  a 
man  ought  to  be.    We  were  friends  at  once,  and  I 


THE  HEART  AT  TWENTY  213 

hated  the  thought  of  losing  him.  It  is  not  gay  at 
Ravetot  with  only  Jeanne  to  talk  to  from  week's  end 
to  week's  end.  And  then  we  are  so  poor  —  and  you 
know  we  do  take  in  paying  guests  when  we  can  get 
them." 

"  I  understand  perfectly,"  said  I. 

She  nodded.  That  was  how  it  happened.  Would 
a  nice  girl  have  done  such  a  thing?  I  replied  that  if 
she  knew  as  much  of  the  ways  of  nice  girls  as  I  did, 
she  would  be  astounded.  She  smiled  wanly  and 
went  on  with  her  artless  story.  Of  course  Mr. 
Everest  jumped  at  the  suggestion.  It  is  not  given  to 
every  yoimg  and  unlamenting  widower  to  be  housed 
beneath  the  same  roof  with  so  dehcious  a  young 
woman  as  Pauline.  He  brought  his  luggage  and  took 
possession  of  the  best  spare  room  in  the  ViUa,  while 
Pauline  and  old,  slatternly  Jeanne,  the  bonne  a  tout 
jaire,  went  about  with  agitated  minds  and  busy 
hands  attending  to  his  comfort.  Old  Widdrington, 
however,  in  his  morose  chimney-comer,  did  not 
welcome  the  visitor.  He  growled  and  grmnbled 
and  rated  his  daughter  for  not  having  doubled  the 
terms.  Didn't  she  know  they  wanted  every  penny 
they  could  get.^  Something  was  wrong  with  his 
roulette  machine  which  ought  to  be  sent  to  Paris  for 
repairs.  Where  was  the  money  to  come  from?  Pau- 
line's father  is  the  most  unscrupulous,  selfish  old 
curmudgeon  of  my  acquaintance! 

Then,  according  to  my  young  lady's  incoherent  and 
parenthetic  narrative,  followed  idylhc  days.  Pauline 
chattered  to  Mr.  Everest  in  the  morning,  walked  with 
him  in  the  afternoon,  pretended  to  play  the  piano  to 


214  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

him  in  the  evening,  and  in  between  times  sat  with 
him  at  meals.  The  inevitable  happened.  She  had 
met  no  one  hke  him  before  —  he  represented  the 
strength  and  the  music  of  the  great  world.  He 
flashed  upon  her  as  the  reaUsation  of  the  vague 
visions  that  had  floated  before  her  eyes  when  she 
stared  seawards  in  the  driving  wind.  That  the  man 
was  a  bit  in  love  with  her  seems  certain.  I  think 
that  one  day,  when  a  wayside  shed  was  sheltering 
them  from  the  rain,  he  must  have  kissed  her.  A 
yoimg  girl's  confidences  are  full  of  details;  but  the 
important  ones  are  generally  left  out.  They  can  be 
divined,  however,  by  the  old  and  experienced.  At 
any  rate  Pauline  was  radiantly  happy,  and  Everest 
appeared  contented  to  stay  indefinitely  at  Ravetot 
and  watch  her  happiness. 

Thus  far  the  story  was  ordinary  enough.  Given 
the  circumstances  it  would  have  been  extraordinary 
if  my  poor  httle  Pauline  had  not  fallen  in  love  with 
the  man  and  if  the  man's  heart  had  not  been  touched. 
If  he  had  found  the  girl's  feelings  too  deep  for  his 
response  and  had  precipitately  bolted  from  a  con- 
fused sense  of  acting  honourably  towards  her,  the 
story  would  also  have  been  commonplace.  The 
cause  of  his  sudden  riding  away  was  pecuharly  pain- 
ful. Somehow  I  cannot  blame  him;  and  yet  I  am 
vain  enough  to  imagine  that  I  should  have  acted 
otherwise. 

One  morning  Everest  asked  her  if  Jeanne  might 
search  his  bedroom  for  a  twenty-franc  piece  which 
he  must  have  dropped  on  the  floor.  In  the  afternoon 
her  father  gave  her  twenty  francs  to  get  a  postal 


THE  HEART  AT  TWENTY  215 

order;  he  was  sending  to  Paris  for  some  fresh 
mechanism  for  his  precious  roulette-wheel.  Everest 
accompanied  her  to  the  httle  Post  Ofi&ce.  They 
walked  arm  in  arm  through  the  village  like  an  af- 
fianced couple,  and  I  fancy  he  must  have  said  ten- 
derer things  than  usual  on  the  way,  for  at  this  stage 
of  the  ^tory  she  wept.  When  she  laid  the  louis  on 
the  slab  below  the  guicket,  she  noticed  that  it  was  a 
a  new  Spanish  coin.  Spanish  gold  is  rare.  She 
showed  it  to  Everest,  and  meeting  his  eyes  read  in 
them  a  curious  questioning.  The  money  order  ob- 
tained, they  continued  their  walk  happily,  and 
Pauline  forgot  the  incident.  Some  days  passed. 
Everest  grew  troubled  and  preoccupied.  One  Hve- 
long  day  he  avoided  her  society  altogether.  She 
lived  through  it  in  a  distressed  wonder,  and  cried 
herself  to  sleep  that  night.  How  had  she  offended  .^* 
The  next  morning  he  gravely  announced  his  de- 
parture. Urgent  affairs  summoned  him  to  Paris. 
In  dazed  misery  she  accepted  the  payment  of  his 
accoimt  and  wrote  him  a  receipt.  His  face  was  set 
like  a  mask,  and  he  looked  at  her  out  of  cold,  stem 
eyes  which  frightened  her.  In  a  timid  way  she 
asked  him  if  he  were  going  without  one  kind  word. 

"There  are  times.  Miss  Widdrington,"  said  he 
"when  no  word  at  all  is  the  kindest." 

"But  what  have  I  done?"  she  cried. 

"  Nothing  at  all  but  what  is  good  and  right.  You 
may  think  whatever  you  like  of  me.    Good-bye  I" 

He  grasped  his  Gladstone  bag,  and  through  the 
window  she  saw  him  give  it  to  the  fisher-lad  who  was 
to  carry  it  three  miles  to  the  nearest  wayside  station. 


216  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

He  disappeared  through  the  gate,  and  so  out  of  her 
life.  Fat,  slatternly  Jeanne  came  upon  her  a  few 
moments  later  moaning  her  heart  out,  and  admin- 
istered comfort.  It  is  very  hard  for  Mademoiselle 
—  but  what  could  Mademoiselle  expect.*^  Monsieur 
Everest  could  not  stay  any  longer  in  the  house. 
Naturally.  Of  course,  Monsieur  was  a  little  touched 
in  the  brain,  with  his  eternal  calculations  —  he  was 
not  responsible  for  his  actions.  Still,  Monsieur 
Everest  did  not  like  Monsieur  to  take  money  out  of 
his  room.  But,  Great  God  of  Pity!  did  not  Made- 
moiselle know  that  was  the  reason  of  Monsieur 
Everest  going  away.^ 

"  It  was  father  who  had  stolen  the  Spanish  louis," 
cried  Pauline  in  a  passion  of  tears,  as  we  leaned  once 
more  against  the  parapet  of  the  jetty.  "He  also 
stole  a  fifty-franc  note.  Then  he  was  caught  red- 
handed  by  Mr.  Everest  rifling  his  despatch-box. 
Jeanne  overheard  them  talking.  It  is  horrible, 
horrible  1  How  he  must  despise  me!  I  feel  wrapped 
in  flames  when  I  think  of  it  —  and  I  love  him  so  — 
and  I  ^haven't  slept  for  a  week  — and  my  heart  is 
broken." 

I  could  do  httle  to  soothe  this  paroxysm,  save  let  it 
spend  itself  against  my  great-coat,  whfle  I  again  put 
my  arm  around  her.  The  grey  tide  was  leaping  in 
and  the  fine  spray  dashed  in  my  face.  The  early; 
twilight  began  to  settle  over  Ravetot,  which  ap- 
peared more  desolate  than  ever. 

"Never  mind,  my  dear,"  said  I,  "you  are  young, 
and  as  your  soul  is  sweet  and  clean  you  will  get  over 
this." 


THE  HEART  AT  TWENTY  217 

"Never,"  she  moaned. 

"You  will  leave  Ravetot-sur-Mer  and  all  its  as- 
sociations, and  the  brightness  of  life  will  drive  all  the 
shadows  away." 

"  No.  It  is  impossible.  My  heart  is  broken  and  I 
only  want  to  stay  here  at  the  end  of  the  jetty  mitil 
I  die." 

"I  shall  die,  anyhow,"  I  remarked  with  a  shiver, 
"if  I  stay  here  much  longer,  and  I  don't  want  to. 
Let  us  go  home." 

She  assented.  We  walked  away  from  the  sea  and 
struck  the  gloomy  inland  road.  Then  I  said,  some- 
what meaningly: 

"Haven't  you  the  curiosity  to  enquire  why  I  left 
my  comfortable  house  in  London  to  come  to  this 
God-forsaken  hole?" 

"Why  did  you.  Doctor,  dear.^"  she  asked  list- 
lessly. 

"To  inform  you  that  your  cross  old  aunt  Caroline 
is  dead,  that  she  has  left  you  three  thousand  pounds  a 
year  under  my  trusteeship  till  you  are  five-and- 
twenty,  and  that  I  am  going  to  carry  off  the  rich  and 
beautiful  Miss  Pauline  Widdrington  to  England 
to-morrow." 

She  stood  stock-still  looking  at  me  open-mouthed. 

"Is  it  true?"  she  gasped. 

"Of  course,"  said  I. 

Her  face  was  transfigured  with  a  sudden  radiance. 
Amazement,  rapture,  youth  —  the  pulsating  wonder 
of  her  twenty  years  danced  in  her  eyes.  In  her  ex- 
citement she  pulled  me  by  the  lapels  of  my  coat 

*' Doctor!    Doctor  I    Three   thousand  pounds   a 


218  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

year!  England  I  London!  Men  and  women! 
Everything  I've  longed  for !  All  the  glad  and  beauti- 
ful things  of  life!" 

"Yes,  my  dear." 

She  took  my  hands  and  swmig  them  backwards  and 
forwards. 

"It's  Heaven!    Delicious  Heaven!"  she  cried. 

"But  what  about  the  broken  heart.^"  I  said 
maliciously. 

She  dropped  my  hands,  sighed,  and  her  face  sud- 
denly assumed  an  expression  of  portentous  misery. 

"I  was  forgetting.  What  does  anything  matter 
now?  I  shall  never  get  over  it.  My  heart  is 
broken." 

"  Devil  a  bit,  my  dear,"  said  I. 


THE  "SCOURGE" 


THE     SCOURGE 


UP  to  the  death  of  his  wife,  that  is  to  say  for 
fifty-six  years,  Sir  Hildebrand  Gates  held 
himself  to  be  a  very  important  and  upright 
man,  whose  Hfe  not  only  was  unassailable  by  slander, 
but  even  through  the  divine  ordering  of  his  being 
exempt  from  criticism.  To  the  world  and  to  himself 
he  represented  the  incarnation  of  British  impecca- 
bility, faultless  from  the  Kttle  pink  crown  of  his  head 
to  the  tips  of  his  toes  correctly  pedicured  and  un- 
stained by  purples  of  retributive  gout.  Except  ia 
church,  where  a  conventional  humihty  of  attitude 
is  imposed,  his  mind  was  blandly  conscia  recti.  No 
ghost  of  sins  committed  disturbed  his  slumbers. 
He  had  committed  no  sin.  He  could  tick  off  the 
Ten  Commandments  one  by  one  with  a  serene  con- 
science. He  objected  to  profane  swearing;  he  was 
a  strict  Sabbatarian;  he  had  honoured  his  father 
and  his  mother  and  had  erected  a  monument  over 
their  grave  which  added  another  fear  of  death  to 
the  beholder;  he  neither  thieved  nor  murdered,  nor 
followed  in  the  footsteps  of  Don  Juan,  nor  in  those 
of  his  own  infamous  namesake;  and  being  blessed 
in  the  world's  goods,  coveted  nothing  possessed  by 

221 


222  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

his  neighbour  —  not  even  his  wife,  for  his  neighbours* 
wives  could  not  compare  in  wifely  meekness  with 
his  own.  In  thought,  too,  he  had  not  sinned.  Never, 
so  far  as  he  remembered,  had  he  spoken  a  ribald 
word,  never,  indeed  had  he  laughed  at  an  unsavoury 
jest.  It  may  be  questioned  whether  he  had  laughed 
at  any  kind  of  joke  whatsoever. 

Sir  Hildebrand  stood  for  many  things:  for  Pubhc 
MoraUty;  his  name  appeared  on  the  committees  of 
all  the  societies  for  the  suppression  of  all  the  vices: 
for  sound  Liberalism  and  Incorruptible  Government; 
he  had  poured  much  of  his  fortune  into  the  party 
coffers  and,  to  his  astonishment,  a  gracious  (and 
minister-harrassed)  Sovereign  had  conveyed  recog- 
nition of  his  virtues  in  the  form  of  a  knighthood. 
For  the  sacred  rights  of  the  people;  as  Justice  of  the 
Peace  he  sentenced  vagrants  who  slept  in  other 
people's  bams  to  the  severest  penalites.  For  Prin- 
ciple in  private  life;  in  spite  of  the  rending  of  his 
own  heart  and  the  agonized  tears  of  his  wife,  he  had 
cast  off  his  undutiful  children<a  son  and  a  daughter 
who  had  been  guilty  of  the  sin  of  disobedience  and 
had  run  away  taking  their  creaking  destinies  in  their 
own  hands.  For  the  Sanctity  of  Home  Life;  night 
and  morning  he  read  prayers  before  the  assembled 
household  and  dismissed  any  maidservant  who  com- 
mitted the  impropriety  of  conversing  with  a  villager 
of  the  opposite  sex.  From  youth  up,  his  demeanour 
had  been  studiously  grave  and  pimctiliously  courte- 
ous. A  man  of  birth  and  breeding,  he  made  it  his 
ambition  to  be  what  he,  with  narrow  definition, 
termed  "a  gentleman  of  the  old  school";  but  being 


THE     SCOURGE  223 

of  Whig  lineage,  he  had  sat  in  Parliament  as  an 
hereditary  Liberal  and  believed  in  Progressive 
Institutions. 

It  is  difficult  to  give  a  flashhght  picture  of  a  human 
being  at  once  so  simple  and  so  complex.  An  ardent 
Pharisee  may  serve  as  an  epigrammatic  characterisa- 
tion. Hypocrite  he  was  not.  No  miserable  sinner 
more  convinced  of  his  rectitude,  more  devoid  of 
pretence,  ever  walked  the  earth.  Though  his  nar- 
rowness of  view  earned  him  but  little  love  from  his 
fellow-humans,  his  singleness  of  purpose,  aided  by 
an  ample  fortime,  gained  a  measure  of  their  respect. 
He  hved  irreproachably  up  to  his  standards.  In  an 
age  of  general  scepticism  he  had  unshakable  faith. 
He  beUeved  intensely  in  himself.  Now  this  pas- 
sionate certitude  of  infalKbility  found,  as  far  as  his 
life's  drama  is  concerned,  its  supreme  expression  in 
his  relation  to  his  wife,  his  children,  and  his  money. 

He  married  young.  His  wife  brought  him  a 
Tv/xLune  for  which  he  was  sole  trustee,  a  couple  of 
children,  and  a  submissive  obedience  unparalleled 
in  the  most  correct  of  Moslem  households.  Eresby 
Manor,  where  they  had  lived  for  thirty  years,  was 
her  own  individual  property,  and  she  drew  for  pocket 
money  some  five  hundred  pounds  a  year.  A  timid, 
weak,  sentimental  soul,  she  was  daunted  from  the 
first  few  frosty  days  of  honeymoon  by  the  inflexible 
personaHty  of  her  husband.  For  thirty  years  she 
passed  in  the  world's  eye  for  little  else  than  his 
shadow. 

"My  dear,  you  must  allow  me  to  judge  in  such 
matters,"  he  would  say  in  reply  to  mild  remonstrance. 


224  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

And  she  deferred  invariably  to  his  judgment.  When 
his  son  Godfrey  and  his  daughter  Sybil  went  their 
respective  unfilial  ways,  it  was  enough  for  him  to 
remark  with  cold  eyes  and  shght,  expressive  gesture: 

"  My  dear,  distressing  as  I  know  it  is  to  you,  their 
conduct  has  broken  my  heart  and  I  forbid  the  men- 
tion of  their  names  in  this  house." 

And  the  years  passed  and  the  perfect  wife,  though, 
in  secret,  she  may  have  moiuned  like  Rachel  for  her 
children,  obeyed  the  very  letter  of  her  husband's 
law. 

There  remains  the  third  vital  point,  to  which  I 
must  refer,  if  I  am  to  make  comprehensible  the 
strange  story  of  Sir  Hildebrand  Gates.  It  was 
money  —  or,  more  explicitly,  the  diaboKcal  caprice 
of  finance  —  that  first  shook  Sir  Hildebrand's  faiths 
not,  perhaps,  in  his  own  infalHbility,  but  in  the 
harmonious  co-operation  of  Divine  Providence  and 
himself.  For  the  four  or  five  years  preceding  his 
wife's  death  his  unerring  instinct  in  financial  affairs 
failed  him.  Speculations  that  promised  indubi- 
tably the  golden  fruit  of  the  Hesperides  produced 
nothing  but  Dead  Sea  apples.  He  lost  enormous 
sums  of  money.  Irritability  constricted  both  his 
brow  and  the  old  debonair  "s"  at  the  end  of  his 
signature.  And  when  the  County  Guarantee  In- 
vestment Society  of  which  he  was  one  of  the  original 
founders  and  directors  called  up  unpaid  balance  on 
shares,  and  even  then  hovered  on  the  verge  of  scandal- 
ous liquidation.  Sir  Hildebrand  found  himself  racked 
with  indignant  anxiety. 

He  was  sitting  at  a  paper-strewn  table  in  his 


THE     SCOURGE  225 

library,  a  decorous  library,  a  gentleman's  library, 
lined  from  floor  to  ceiling  with  bookcases  filled  with. 
books  that  no  gentleman's  library  should  be  without, 
and  trying  to  solve  the  eternal  problem  why  two 
and  two  should  not  make  forty,  when  the  butler 
entered  announcing  the  doctor. 

"Ah,  Thompson,  glad  to  see  you.  What  is  it? 
Have  you  looked  at  Lady  Gates?  Been  a  bit  queer 
for  some  days.  These  east  winds.  I  hold  them 
responsible  for  half  the  sickness  of  the  county." 

He  threw  up  an  accusing  hand.  If  the  east  wind 
had  been  a  human  vagabond  brought  before  Sir 
Hildebrand  Gates,  Justice  of  the  Peace,  it  would  have 
whined  itself  into  a  Zephyr.  Sir  Hildebrand's  eyes 
looked  blue  and  cold  at  offenders.  From  a  stature  of 
medium  height  he  managed  to  extract  the  dignity  of 
six-foot-two.  Beneath  a  very  long  and  very  straight 
nose  a  grizzling  moustache,  dependent  on  the  muscles 
of  the  thin  lips  as  to  whether  it  should  go  up  or  down, 
symbolised,  as  it  were,  the  scales  of  justice.  Sketches 
of  accurately  trimmed  grey  whiskers  also  indicated 
the  exact  balance  of  his  mind.  But  to  show  that  he 
was  human  and  not  impassionately  divine,  his  thin 
hair  once  black,  now  greenish,  was  parted  low  down 
on  the  left  side  and  brought  straight  over,  leaving  the 
Httle  pink  crown  to  which  I  have  before  alluded.  His 
complexion  was  florid,  disavowing  atrabiliar  preju- 
dice. He  had  the  long  blimted  chin  of  those  secure 
of  their  destiny.    He  was  extraordinarily  clean. 

The  doctor  said  abruptly :  "  It's  nothing  to  do  with 
east  winds.  It's  internal  complications.  I  have  to 
teU  you  she's  very  seriously  ill." 


226  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

A  shadow  of  impatience  passed  over  Sir  Hilde- 
brand's  brow. 

"Just  like  my  wife,"  said  he,  "to  fall  ill,  when  I'm 
already  half  off  my  head  with  worry." 

"The   Comity   Guarantee ?" 

Sir  Hildebrand  nodded.  The  misfortunes  of  the 
Society  were  pubhc  property,  and  public  too,  within 
the  fairly  wide  area  of  his  acquaintance,  was  the 
knowledge  of  the  fact  that  Sir  Hildebrand  was 
heavily  involved  therein.  Too  often  had  he  vaunted 
the  beneficent  prosperity  of  the  concern  to  which  he 
had  given  his  august  support.  At  his  own  dinner- 
table  men  had  dreaded  the  half-hour  after  the 
departure  of  the  ladies,  and  at  his  club  men  had 
fled  from  him  as  they  flee  from  the  Baconian  myth- 
ologist. 

"It  is  a  worry,"  the  doctor  admitted.  "But 
financial  preoccupations  must  give  way  "  —  he  looked 
Sir  Hfldebrand  clear  in  the  eyes — "must  give  way 
before  elementary  questions  of  life  and  death." 

"Death?"  Sir  Hildebrand  regarded  him  blankly. 
How  dare  Death  intrude  in  so.  unmannerly  a  fashion 
across  his  threshold? 

"  I  should  have  been  called  in  weeks  ago,"  said  the 
doctor.  "All  I  can  suggest  now  is  that  you  should 
get  Sir  Almeric  Home  down  from  London.  I'll 
telephone  at  once,  with  your  authority.  An  opera- 
tion may  save  her." 

"  By  all  means.  But  tell  me  —  I  had  no  idea  —  I 
wanted  to  send  for  you  last  week,  but  she's  so  ob- 
stinate —  said  it  was  mere  indigestion." 

"You  should  have  sent  for  me  all  the  same." 


THE     SCOURGE  227 

"Anyhow,"  said  Sir  Hildebrand,  "tell  me  the 
worst." 

The  doctor  told  him  and  departed.  Sir  Hilde- 
brand walked  up  and  down  his  library,  a  man  im- 
deservedly  stricken.  The  butler  entered.  Pringle, 
the  chauffeur,  desired  audience. 

Admitted,  the  man  plunged  into  woeful  apol6gy. 
He  had  been  trying  the  Mercedes  on  its  return  from 
an  overhaul,  and  as  he  turned  the  comer  by  Rush- 
worth  Farm  a  motor  lorry  had  run  iuto  him  and 
smashed  his  head-lamps. 

"  I  told  you  when  I  engaged  you,"  said  Sir  Hilde- 
brand, "that  I  allowed  no  accidents." 

"  It's  only  the  lamps.  I  was  driving  most  careful. 
The  driver  of  the  lorry  owns  himself  in  the  wrong," 
pleaded  the  chauffeur. 

"The  merits  or  demerits  of  the  case,"  repHed  Sir 
Hildebrand,  "do  not  interest  me.  It's  an  accident. 
I  don't  allow  accidents.  You  take  a  month's 
notice." 

"Very  well,  Sir  Hildebrand,  but  I  do  think  it " 

"Enough,"  said  Sir  Hildebrand,  dismissing  him. 
"  I  have  nothing  more  to  hear  from  you  or  to  say  to 
you." 

Then,  when  he  was  alone  again.  Sir  Hildebrand 
reflected  that  noble  resignation  under  misfortune 
was  the  part  of  a  Christian  gentleman,  and  in 
chastened  mood  went  upstairs  to  see  his  wife.  And 
in  the  days  that  followed,  when  Sir  Almeric  Home, 
summoned  too  late,  had  performed  the  useless 
wonders  of  his  magical  craft  and  had  gone,  Sir 
Hildebrand,  most  impeccable  of  husbands,  visited 


228  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

the  sick-room  twice  a  day,  making  the  most  correct 
enquiries,  beseeching  her  to  name  desires  capable  of 
fuLBhnent,  and  m-banely  prophesying  speedy  retmn 
to  health.  At  the  end  of  the  second  visit  he  bent 
down  and  kissed  her  on  the  forehead.  The  ukase 
went  forth  to  the  servants'  hall  that  no  one  should 
speak  above  a  whisper,  for  fear  of  disturbing  her 
ladyship,  and  the  gardeners  had  orders  to  supply 
the  sick-room  with  a  daily  profusion  of  flowers. 
Mortal  gentleman  could  show  no  greater  sohcitude 
for  a  sick  wife  —  save  perhaps  bring  her  a  bunch  of 
violets  in  his  own  hand.  But  with  an  automatic 
supply  of  orchids,  why  should  he  think  of  so  trmnpery 
an  offering? 

Lady  Gates  died.  Sir  Hildebrand  accepted  the 
stroke  with  Christian  resignation.  The  Lord  giveth 
and  the  Lord  taketh  away.  Yet  his  house  was 
desolate.  He  appreciated  her  virtues,  which  were 
many.  He  went  categorically  through  her  attri- 
butes: A  faithful  wife,  a  worthy  mother  of  un- 
worthy children,  a  capable  manager,  a  submissive 
helpmate,  a  country  gentlewoman  of  the  old  school 
who  provided  supremely  for  her  husband's  material 
comforts  and  never  trespassed  into  the  sphere  of  his 
intellectual  and  other  masculine  activities.  His 
grief  at  the  loss  of  his  Eliza  was  sincere.  The  im- 
pending crash  of  the  County  Guarantee  Investment 
Society  ceased  to  trouble  him.  His  own  fortune  had 
practically  gone.  Let  it  go.  His  dead  wife's  re- 
mained—  sufficient  to  maintain  his  position  in  the 
coimty.  As  Dr.  Thompson  had  rightly  said,  the 
vulgarities  of  finance  must  give  way  to  the  eternal 


THE     SCOURGE  229 

sublimities  of  death.  His  wife,  with  whom  he  had 
lived  for  thirty  years  in  a  conjugal  felicity  unclouded 
save  by  the  unforgivable  sins  of  his  children  now 
exiled  through  their  own  wilfulness  to  remote  parts 
of  the  Empire,  was  dead.  The  stupendous  fact 
eclipsed  all  other  facts  in  a  fact-riveted  universe. 
Lady  Gates  who,  after  the  way  of  women  of  limited 
outlook,  had  always  taken  a  great  interest  in  funerals, 
had  the  funeral  of  her  life.  The  Bishop  of  the 
Diocese  conducted  the  funeral  service.  The  County, 
headed  by  the  old  Duke  of  Dunster,  his  neighbour, 
followed  her  to  the  grave. 


n 

"She  was  a  good  Christian  woman,  Haversham,'* 
said  Sir  Hildebrand  later  in  the  day.  "I  did  not 
deserve  her.  But  I  think  I  may  feel  that  I  did  my 
best  all  my  life  to  ensure  her  happiness." 

"No  doubt,  of  course,"  repUed  Haversham,  the 
county  lawyer.  "Er  —  don't  you  think  we  might 
get  this  formal  business  over.»*  I've  brought  Lady 
Oates's  will  in  my  pocket." 

He  drew  out  a  sealed  envelope.  Sir  Hildebrand 
held  out  his  hand.  The  lawyer  shook  his  head.  "  I'm 
executor  —  it's  written  on  the  outside  —  I  must 
open  it." 

"You  executor?  That's  rather  strange,"  said  Sir 
Hildebrand. 

Haversham  opened  the  envelope,  adjusted  his 
glasses,  and  glanced  through  the  document.  Then 
he  took  off  his  glasses  and  his  brows  wrinkled,  and 


230  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

with  a  queer  look,  half  scared,  half  malicious,  in 
his  eyes,  gazed  at  Sir  Hildebrand. 

"  I  must  tell  you,  my  dear  Gates,"  said  he,  after  a 
moment  or  so,  "that  I  had  nothing  to  do  with  the 
making  of  this.  Nothing  whatsoever.  Lady  Gates 
called  at  my  office  about  two  years  ago  and  placed 
the  sealed  envelope  in  my  charge.  I  had  no  idea  of 
the  contents  till  this  minute." 

"Let  me  see,"  said  Sir  Hildebrand;  and  again  he 
stretched  out  his  hand. 

Haversham,  holding  the  paper,  hesitated  for  a  few 
seconds.  "I'm  afraid  I  must  read  it  to  you,  there 
being  no  third  party  present." 

"Third  party?    What  do  you  mean.!^" 

"A  witness.  A  formal  precaution."  The  lawyer 
again  put  on  his  glasses.  "The  introductory  matter 
is  the  ordinary  phraseology  of  the  printed  form  one 
buys  at  stationers'  shops  —  naming  me  executor." 
Then  he  read  aloud: 

"I  will  and  bequeath  to  my  husband.  Sir  Hilde- 
brand Gates,  Knight,  the  sum  of  fifteen  shillings  to 
buy  himself  a  scourge  to  do  penance  for  the  arrogance, 
uncharitableness  and  cruelty  with  which  he  has 
treated  myself  and  my  beloved  children  for  the  last 
thirty  years.  I  bequeath  to  my  son  Godfrey  the 
house  and  estate  of  Eresby  Manor  and  all  the  furni- 
ture, plate,  jewels,  hvestock  and  everything  of  mine 
comprised  therein.  The  residue  of  my  possessions 
I  bequeath  to  my  son  Godfrey  and  my  daughter 
Sybil,  in  equal  shares.  I  leave  it  to  my  children  to 
act  generously  by  my  old  servants,  and  my  horses 
and  dogs." 


THE     SCOURGE  231 

Sir  Hildebrand's  florid  face  grew  purple.  He 
looked  fishy-eyed  and  open-mouthed  at  the  lawyer, 
and  gurgled  horribly  in  his  throat.  Haversham 
hastily  rang  a  bell.  The  butler  appeared.  Between 
them  they  carried  Sir  Hildebrand  up  to  bed  and  sent 
for  the  doctor. 

m 

When  Sir  Hildebrand  recovered,  which  he  did 
quickly,  he  went  about  like  a  man  in  a  daze,  stupified 
by  his  wife's  hideous  accusation  and  monstrous  in- 
gratitude. It  was  inconceivable  that  the  submissive 
angel  with  whom  he  had  lived  and  the  secret  writer 
of  those  appalling  words  should  be  one  and  the  same 
person.  Surely,  insanity.  That  invahdated  the  will. 
But  Haversham  pointed  out  that  insanity  would 
have  to  be  proved,  which  was  impossible.  The  will 
contained  no  legal  flaw.  Lady  Oates's  dispositions 
would  have  to  be  carried  out. 

"It  leaves  me  practically  a  pauper,"  said  Sir 
Hildebrand,  whereat  the  other,  imperceptibly, 
shrugged  his  shoulders. 

He  realised,  in  cold  terror,  that  the  house  wherein 
he  dwelt  was  his  no  longer.  Even  the  chairs  and 
tables  belonged  to  his  son,  Godfrey.  His  own 
personal  belongings  could  be  carried  away  in  a 
couple  of  handcarts.  Instead  of  thousands  his  in- 
come had  suddenly  dwindled  to  a  salvage  of  a  few 
hundreds  a  year.  From  his  position  in  the  county 
he  had  tumbled  with  the  suddenness  and  irrepara- 
bility  of  Hmnpty-Dumpty!  All  the  vanities  of  his 
life  sprang  on  him  and  choked  him.     He  was  a 


232  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

person  of  no  importance  whatever.  He  gasped. 
Had  mere  outside  misfortune  beset  him,  he  doubtless 
would  have  faced  his  downfall  with  tjie  courage  of  a 
gentleman  of  the  old  school.  His  soul  would  have 
been  untouched.  But  now  it  was  stabbed,  and  with 
an  envenomed  blade.  His  wife  had  brought  him 
to  bitter  shame.  .  .  .  "Arrogance,  uncharitable- 
ness,  cruelty."  The  denunciation  rang  in  his  head 
day  and  night.  He  arrogant,  uncharitable,  cruel.^* 
The  charge  staggered  reason.  His  indignant  glance 
sweeping  backward  through  the  years  could  see 
nothing  in  his  life  but  continuous  humihty,  charity, 
and  kindness.  He  had  not  deviated  a  hair's  breath 
from  irreproachable  standards  of  conduct.  Ar- 
rogant? When  Sybil,  engaged  in  consequences  of 
his  tender  sagacity  to  a  neighbouring  magnate,  a 
widowed  ironmaster,  eloped,  at  dead  of  night  on  her 
wedding  eve,  with  a  penniless  subaltern  in  the 
Indian  Army,  he  suffered  humiliation  before  the 
countryside,  with  manly  dignity.  No  less  humihat- 
iug  had  been  his  position  and  no  less  resigned  his 
attitude  when  Godfrey,  declining  to  obey  the  tee- 
total, non-smoking,  early-to-bed,  early-to-breakfast 
rules  of  the  house,  declining  also  to  be  ordained  and 
take  up  the  hving  of  Thereon  in  the  gift  of  the  Lady 
of  the  Manor  of  Eresby,  went  off,  in  undutiful  pas- 
sion, to  Canada  to  pursue  some  godless  and  pre- 
carious career.  Uncharitableness?  Cruelty?  His 
children  had  defied  him,,  and  with  callous  barbarity 
had  cut  all  filial  ties.  And  his  wife?  She  had  hved 
in  cotton-wool  all  her  days.  It  was  she  who  had 
been  cruel  —  inconceivably  mahgnant. 


THE     SCOURGE  233 

IV 

Sir  Hildebrand,  after  giving  Haversham,  the 
lawyer,  an  account  of  his  stewardship  —  in  his  wild 
investments  he  had  not  imperilled  a  penny  of  his 
wife's  money  —  resigned  his  coimty  appointments, 
chairmanships  and  presidentships  and  memberships 
of  committees,  went  to  London  and  took  a  room  at 
his  club.  Rumouor  of  his  fallen  fortunes  spread 
quickly.  He  found  himself  neither  shunned  nor 
snubbed,  but  not  welcomed  in  the  inner  smoke- 
room  coterie  before  which,  as  a  wealthy  and  im- 
portant county  gentleman,  he  had  been  wont  to  lay 
down  the  law.  No  longer  was  he  Sir  Oracle.  Sensi- 
tive to  the  subtle  changes  he  attributed  them  to  the 
rank  snobbery  of  his  fellow-members.  No  doubt  he 
was  right.  The  deKcate  point  of  snobbery  that  he 
did  not  reahse  was  the  difference  between  the  de- 
grees of  sufferance  accorded  to  the  rich  bore  and  the 
poor  bore.  In  the  eyes  of  the  club.  Sir  Hildebrand 
Oates  was  the  poor  bore.  He  became  freezingly 
aware  of  a  devastating  loneliness.  In  the  meanwhile 
his  children  had  written  the  correctest  of  letters. 
Deep  grief  for  mother's  death  was  the  keynote  of 
each.  With  regard  to  worldly  matters,  Sybil  con- 
fessed that  the  legacy  made  a  revolution  in  her  plans 
for  her  children's  future,  but  would  not  affect  her 
present  movements,  as  she  could  not  allow  her 
husband  to  abandon  a  career  which  promised  to  be 
briUiant.  She  would  be  home  in  a  couple  of  years. 
The  son,  Godfrey,  welcomed  the  unexpected  fortune. 
The  small  business  he  had  got  together  just  needed 


234  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

this  capital  to  expand  into  gigantic  proportions.  It 
would  be  two  or  three  years  before  he  could  leave  it. 
In  the  meantime,  he  hoped  his  father  would  not 
dream  of  leaving  Eresby  Manor.  Neither  son  nor 
daughter  seemed  to  be  aware  of  Sir  Hildebrand's 
impoverishment.  Also,  neither  of  them  expressed 
sympathy  for,  or  even  alluded  to,  the  grief  that  he 
himself  must  be  suffering.  The  omission  puzzled 
him;  for  he  had  the  lawyer's  assurance  that  they 
should  remain  ignorant,  as  far  as  lay  in  his  power,  of 
the  dreadful  text  of  the  will.  Did  the  omission  arise 
from  doubt  in  their  minds  as  to  his  love  for  their 
mother  and  the  genuineness  of  his  sorrow  at  her 
death?  To  solve  the  riddle.  Sir  Hildebrand  began 
to  think  as  he  had  never  thought  before. 


Arrogance,  uncharitableness,  and  cruelty.  To 
wife  and  children.  For  thirty  years.  Fifteen  shil- 
lings to  buy  a  scourge  wherewith  to  do  penance.  He 
could  think  of  nothing  else  by  day  or  night.  The 
earth  beneath  his  feet  which  he  had  deemed  so 
solid  became  a  quagmire,  so  that  he  knew  not  where 
to  step.  And  the  serene  air  darkened.  The  roots 
of  his  being  suffered  cataclysm.  Either  his  wife  had 
been  some  mad  monster  in  human  form,  or  her 
terrible  indictment  had  some  basis  of  truth.  The 
man's  soul  writhed  in  the  flame  of  the  blazing  words. 
A  scourge  for  penance.  Fifteen  shillings  to  buy  it 
with.  In  due  course  he  received  the  ghastly  cheque 
from  Haversham.    His  first  impulse  was  to  tear  it 


THE     SCOURGE  235 

to  pieces;  his  second,  to  fold  it  up  and  put  it  in  his 
letter-case.  At  the  end  of  a  business  meeting  with 
Haversham  a  day  or  two  later,  he  asked  him  point- 
blank: 

"  Why  did  you  insult  me  by  sending  me  the  cheque 
for  fifteen  shilhngs?" 

"  It  was  a  legal  formality  with  which  I  was  bound 
to  comply." 

"De  minimis  non  curat  lex,'^  said  Sir  HUdebrand. 
"No  one  pays  barley-com  rent  or  farthing  damages 
or  the  shilling  consideration  in  a  contract.  Your 
action  imphes  malicious  agreement  with  Lady  Gates' 
opinion  of  me." 

He  bent  his  head  forward  and  looked  at  Haversham 
with  feverish  intensity.  Haversham  had  old  scores 
to  settle.  The  importance,  omniscience,  perfection, 
and  condescending  urbanity  of  Sir  Hildebrand  had 
rasped  his  nerves  for  a  qpiarter  of  a  century.  If  th^e 
was  one  living  man  whom  he  hated  whole-heartedly, 
and  over  whose  humiliation  he  rejoiced,  it  was  Sir 
Hildd3rand  Gates.  He  yielded  to  the  swift  temp- 
tation.   He  rose  hastily  and  gathered  up  his  papesrs. 

"If  you  can  find  me  a  human  creature  in  this 
universe  who  doesn't  share  Lady  Gates's  opinion,  I 
win  give  him  every  penny  I  am  worth." 

He  went  out,  and  then  overcome  with  remorse  for 
having  kicked  a  fallen  man,  felt  inclined  to  hang  him- 
self. But  he  knew  that  he  had  spoken  truly.  Mean- 
while Sir  Hildebrand  walked  up  and  down  the  httle 
visitors'  room  at  the  club,  where  the  interview  had 
taken  place,  passing  his  hand  over  his  indeterminate 
moustache  and  long  blunt  chin.    He  felt  neither 


236  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

anger  nor  indignation  —  but  rather  the  dazed  dis- 
may of  a  prisoner  to  whom  the  judge  deals  a  severer 
sentence  than  he  expected.  After  a  while  he  sat  at 
a  small  table  and  prepared  to  write  a  letter  connected 
with  the  business  matters  he  had  just  discussed  with 
Haversham.  But  the  words  would  not  come,  his 
brain  was  fogged;  he  went  off  into  a  reverie,  and 
awoke  to  find  himself  scribbling  in  arabesque, 
"Fifteen  shillings  to  buy  a  scourge." 

After  a  soHtary  dinner  at  the  club  that  evening  he 
discovered  in  a  remote  comsr  of  the  smoking-room,  a 
life-long  acquaintance,  an  old  schoolfellow,  one 
Colonel  Bagot,  reading  a  newspaper.  He  ap- 
proached. 

"Good  evening,  Bc»qct." 

Colonel  Bagot  raisti  his  eyes  from  the  paper, 
nodded,  and  resumed  Ids  reading.  Sir  Hildebrand 
deliberately  wheeled  a  chair  to  his  side  and  sat 
down. 

"Can  I  have  a  word  or  two  with  you.»^" 

"Certainly,  my  dear  fellow,"  Bagot  relied, 
putting  down  his  paper. 

"What  kind  of  a  boy  was  I  at  school.^" 

"What  kind  of  a  .  .  .  what  the  deuce  do  you 
mean?"  asked  the  astonished  colonel. 

"  I  want  you  to  teU  me  what  kind  of  a  boy  I  was," 
said  Sir  Hildebrand  gravely. 

"Just  an  ordinary  chap." 

"Would  you  have  called  me  modest,  generous,  and 
kmd.3" 

"What  in  God's  name  are  you  driving  at.^"  asked 
the  Colonel,  twisting  himself  round  on  his  chair. 


THE     SCOURGE  237 

"At  your  opinion  of  me.  Was  I  modest,  generous, 
and  kind?    It's  a  vital  question." 

**  It's  a  damned  embarrassing  one  to  put  to  a  man 
during  the  process  of  digestion.  Well,  you  know, 
Gates,  you  always  were  a  queer  beggar.  If  I  had  had 
the  summing  up  of  you  I  should  have  said:  'Free 
from  vice.'" 

"Negative." 

"Well,  yes  —  in  a  way  —  but  " 

"You've  answered  me.  Now  another.  Do  you 
think  I  treated  my  children  badly?" 

"Really,  Gates  —  oh,  confound  it!"  Angrily  he 
dusted  himself  free  from  the  long  ash  that  had  fallen 
from  his  cigar.  "I  don't  see  why  I  should  be  asked 
such  a  question." 

"I  do.  You've  known  me  all  your  life.  I  want 
you  to  answer  it  frankly." 

Colonel  Bagot  was  stout,  red,  and  choleric.  Sir 
Hildebrand  irritated  him.  If  he  was  looking  for 
trouble,  he  should  have  it.  "I  think  you  treated 
them  abominably  —  there!"  said  he. 

"Thank  you,"  said  Sir  Hildebrand. 

"What?"  gasped  Bagot. 

"I  said  'thank  you.'  And  lastly  —  you  have  had 
many  opportunitues  of  judging  —  do  you  think  I  did 
all  in  my  power  to  make  my  wife  happy?" 

At  first  Bagot  made  a  gesture  of  impatience.  His 
position  was  both  grotesque  and  intolerable.  Was 
Gates  going  mad?  Answering  the  surmise,  Sir 
Hildebrand  said: 

"I'm  aware  my  question  is  extraordinary,  perhaps 
outrageous;    but  I  am  quite  sane.    Did  she  look 


238  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

crushed,  down-trodden,  as  though  she  were  not  al- 
lowed to  have  a  will  of  her  own?  " 

It  was  impossible  not  to  see  that  the  man  was  in  a 
dry  agony  of  earnestness.  Irritation  and  annoyance 
fell  like  garments  from  Bagot's  shoulders. 

"You  really  want  to  get  at  the  exact  truth,  as  far 
as  I  can  give  it  you?" 

"  From  the  depth  of  my  soul,"  said  Sir  Hildebrand. 

"Then,"  answered  Bagot,  quite  simply,  "I'm  sorry 
to  say  unpleasant  things.  But  I  think  Lady  Gates 
led  a  dog's  life  —  and  so  does  everybody." 

"That's  just  what  I  wanted  to  be  sure  of,"  said  Sir 
Hildebrand,  rising.  He  bent  his  head  courteously. 
"  Good  night,  Bagot,"  and  he  went  away  with  dreary 
dignity. 

VI 

A  CLOUD  settled  on  Sir  Hildebrand's  mind  through 
which  he  saw  immediate  things  murkily.  He  passed 
days  of  unaccustomed  loneliness  and  inaction.  He 
walked  the  familiar  streets  of  London  like  one  in  a 
dream.  One  afternoon  he  found  himself  gazing  with 
unspeculative  eye  into  the  window  of  a  small  Roman 
CathoKc  Repository  where  crucifixes  and  statues  of 
the  Virgin  and  Child  and  rosaries  and  reUgious  books 
and  pictures  were  exposed  for  sale.  Until  reahsation 
of  the  objects  at  which  he  had  been  staring  dawned 
upon  his  mind,  he  had  not  been  aware  of  the  nature 
of  the  shop.  The  shadow  of  a  smile  passed  over  his 
face.  He  entered.  An  old  man  with  a  long  white 
beard  was  behind  the  counter. 

"Do  you  keep  scourges?"  asked  Sir  Hildebrand. 


THE     SCOURGE  239 

"No,  sir/*  replied  the  old  man,  somewhat  as- 
tonished. 

"That's  unfortmiate  —  very  mifortmiate,"  said 
Sir  Hildebrand,  regarding  him  dully.  "  I'm  in  need 
of  one." 

"Even  among  certain  of  the  religious  orders  the 
Discipline  is  forbidden  nowadays,"  replied  the  old 
man. 

"Among  certain  others  it  is  practised.**" 

"I  believe  so." 

"Then  scourges  are  procurable.  I  will  ask  you  to 
get  one  —  or  have  one  made  according  to  rehgious 
pattern.     I  will  pay  fifteen  shillings  for  it." 

"  It  could  not  possibly  cost  that  —  a  mere  matter 
of  wood  and  string." 

"  I  will  pay  neither  more  nor  less,"  said  Sir  Hilde- 
brand, laying  on  the  counter  the  cheque  which  he 
had  endorsed  and  his  card.  "I  —  I  have  made  a 
vow.  It's  a  matter  of  conscience.  Kindly  send  it 
to  the  club  address." 

He  walked  out  of  the  shop  somewhat  hghter  of 
heart,  his  instinct  for  the  scrupulous  satisfied.  The 
abominable  cheque  no  longer  burned  through  letter- 
case  and  raiment  and  body  and  corroded  his  soul. 
He  had  devoted  the  money  to  the  purpose  for  which 
it  was  ear-marked.  The  precision  was  soothed.  In 
puzzling  darkness  he  had  also  taken  an  enormous 
psychological  stride. 

The  familiar  club  became  unbearable,  his  fellow- 
members  abhorrent.  Friends  and  acquaintances 
outside  —  and  they  were  legion  —  who,  taking  pity 
on  his  loneliness,  sought  him  out  and  invited  him  to 


240  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

their  houses,  he  shunned  in  a  curious  terror.  He  was 
forever  meeting  them  in  the  streets.  Behind  their 
masks  of  sympathy  he  read  his  wife's  deadly  ac- 
cusation and  its  confirmation  which  he  had  received 
from  Haversham  and  Bagot.  When  the  scourge 
arrived  —  a  business-hke  instrument  in  a  cardboard 
box  —  he  sat  for  a  long  time  in  his  club  bedroom 
drawing  the  knotted  cords  between  his  fingers,  lost 
in  retrospective  thought.  .  .  ,  And  suddenly  a  scene 
flashed  across  his  mind.  Venice.  The  first  days 
of  their  honeymoon.  The  sun-baked  Renaissance 
fagade  of  a  church  in  a  Campo  bounded  by  a  canal 
where  their  gondola  lay  waiting.  A  tattered,  one- 
legged,  be-crutched  beggar  holding  out  his  hat 
by  the  church  door.  .  .  .  He,  Hildebrand,  stalked 
majestically  past,  his  wife  following.  Near  the 
fondamenta  he  turned  and  discovered  her  in  the  act 
of  tendering  from  her  purse  a  two-lire  piece  to  the 
beggar  who  had  hobbled  expectant  in  her  wake. 
Hildebrand  interposed  a  hand;  the  shock  acciden- 
tally jerked  the  coin  from  hers.  It  rolled.  The  one- 
legged  beggar  threw  himself  prone,  in  order  to  seize 
it.  But  it  rolled  into  the  canal.  An  agony  of 
despair  and  supplication  mounted  from  the  tatter- 
demahon's  eyes. 
I     "  Oh,  Hildebrand,  give  him  another." 

"  Certainly  not,"  he  repHed.  *'  It's  immoral  to  en- 
courage mendicity." 

She  wept  in  the  gondola.  He  thought  her  silly, 
and  told  her  so.  They  landed  at  the  Molo  and  he 
took  her  to  drink  chocolate  at  Florian's  on  the 
Piazza.    She  bent  her  meek  head  over  the  cup  and 


THE     SCOURGE  241 

the  tears  fell  into  it.  A  well-dressed  Venetian  couple 
who  sat  at  the  next  table  stared  at  her,  passed  re- 
marks, and  giggled  outright  with  the  ordinary  and 
exquisite  Italian  politeness. 

"My  dear  Eliza,"  said  Hildebrand,  "if  you  can't 
help  being  a  victim  to  sickly  sentimentality,  at  least, 
as  my  wife,  you  must  leam  to  control  yourself  in 
public." 

>  And  meekly  she  controlled  herself  and  drank  her 
salted  chocolate.  In  compliance  with  a  timidly  ex- 
pressed desire,  and  in  order  to  show  his  forgiveness, 
he  escorted  her  into  the  open  square,  and  like  any 
vulgar  Cook's  tourist  bought  her  a  paper  comet  of 
dried  peas,  wherewith,  to  his  self-conscious  martyr- 
dom, she  fed  the  pigeons.  Seeing  an  old  man  some 
way  off  do  the  same,  she  scattered  a  few  grains  along 
the  curled-up  brim  of  her  Leghorn  hat;  and  pres- 
ently, so  still  she  was  and  gracious,  an  iridescent 
swarm  enveloped  her,  eating  from  both  hands  out- 
stretched and  encircling  her  head  like  a  halo.  For 
the  moment  she  was  the  embodiment  of  innocent 
happiness.  But  Hildebrand  thought  her  notoriously 
absurd,  and  when  he  saw  Lord  and  Lady  Benham 
approaching  them  from  the  Piazzetta,  he  stepped 
forward  and  with  an  abrupt  gesture  sent  the  pigeons 
scurrying  away.  And  she  looked  for  the  vanished 
birds  with  much  the  same  scared  piteousness  as  the 
one-legged  beggar  had  looked  for  the  lost  two-lire 
piece. 

After  thirty  years  the  memory  of  that  afternoon 
flamed  vivid,  as  he  drew  the  strings  of  the  idle  scourge 
between  his  fingers.  And  then  the  puzzling  darkness 
overspread  his  mind. 


242,  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

After  a  while  he  replaced  the  scourge  in  the  card- 
board box  and  summoned  the  club  valet. 

"Pack  up  all  my  things,"  said  he.  "I  am  going 
abroad  to-morrow  by  the  eleven  o'clock  train  from 
Victoria."  , 

VII 

Few  English-speaking  and,  stranger  still,  few 
German-speaking  guests  stay  at  the  Albergo  ToneUi 
in  Venice.  For  one  thing,  it  has  not  many  rooms; 
for  another,  it  is  far  from  the  Grand  Canal;  and  for 
yet  another,  the  fat  proprietor  Ettore  Tonelli  and  his 
fatter  wife  are  too  sluggish  of  body  and  brain  to 
worry  about  forestieri  who  have  to  be  communicated 
with  In  outlandish  tongues,  and,  for  their  supposed 
comfort,  demand  all  sorts  of  exotic  foohshness  such 
as  baths,  punctuality,  and  information  as  to  the 
whereabouts  of  fusty  old  pictures  and  the  exact 
tariff  of  gondolas.  The  house  was  filled  from  year's 
end  to  year's  end  with  Italian  commercial  travellers; 
and  Ettore's  ways  and  their  ways  corresponded  to  a 
nicety.  The  Albergo  Tonelli  was  a  little  red-brick 
fifteenth-century  palazzo,  its  Lombardic  crocketed 
windows  gaily  picked  out  in  white,  and  it  dominated 
the  campielk)  wherein  it  was  situated.  In  the  centre 
of  the  tiny  square  was  a  marble  well-head  richly 
carved,  and  by  its  side  a  pump  from  which  the  in- 
habitants of  the  vague  tumble-down  circumambient 
dwellings  drew  the  water  to  wash  the  underlinen 
which  hung  to  dry  from  the  windows.  A  great 
segment  of  the  comer  diagonally  opposite  the 
Albergo  was  occupied  by  the  bare  and  rudely  swelling 


THE     SCOURGE  243 

brick  apse  of  a  seventeenth-century  church.  Two 
inconsiderable  thoroughfares,  calle  five  foot  wide,  lead 
from  the  campiello  to  the  wide  world  of  Venice. 

It  was  hither  that  Sir  Hildebrand  Oates,  after  a 
week  of  nerve-shattering  tumult  at  one  of  the  great 
Grand  Canal  hotels,  and  after  horrified  examination 
of  the  question  of  balance  of  expenditure  over  in- 
come, found  his  way  through  the  kind  offices  of  a 
gondoHer  to  whom  he  had  promised  twenty  francs  if 
he  could  conduct  him  to  the  forgotten  church,  the 
memorable  scene  of  the  adventure  of  the  beggar  and 
the  two-franc  piece.  With  unerring  instinct  the 
gondoher  had  rowed  him  to  Santa  Maria  Formosa,  the 
very  spot.  Sir  Hildebrand  troubled  himself  neither 
with  the  church  nor  the  heart-easing  wonder  of 
Palma  Vecchio's  Santa  Barbara  within,  but,  with 
bent  brow,  traced  the  course  of  the  lame  beggar 
from  the  step  to  the  fondamenta,  and  the  course  of 
the  rolling  coin  from  his  EHza's  hand  into  the  canal. 
Then  he  paused  for  a  few  moments  deep  in  thought, 
and  finally  drew  a  two-lire  piece  from  his  pocket, 
and,  recrossing  the  Campo,  handed  it  gravely  to  a 
beggar-woman,  the  successor  of  the  lame  man,  who 
sat  sunning  herself  on  the  spacious  marble  seat  by 
the  side  of  the  great  door.  When  he  returned  to  the 
hotel  he  gave  the  gondolier  his  colossal  reward  and 
made  a  friend  for  life.  Giuseppe  delighted  at  finding 
an  English  gentleman  who  could  converse  readily  in 
Itahan  —  for  Sir  Hildebrand,  a  man  of  considerable 
culture,  possessed  a  working  knowledge  of  three  or 
four  European  languages  —  expressed  his  gratitude 
on    subsequent    excursions,    by    overflowing    with 


244  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

picturesque  anecdote,  both  historical  and  personal. 
A  pathetic  craving  for  intercourse  with  his  kind  and 
the  solace  of  obtaining  it  from  one  remote  from  his 
social  environment  drew  Sir  Hildebrand  into  queer 
sympathy  with  a  genuine  human  being.  Giuseppe 
treated  him  with  a  respectful  famiharity  which  he 
had  never  before  encountered  in  a  member  of  the 
lower  classes.  One  afternoon,  on  the  silent  lagune 
side  of  the  Giudecca,  turning  round  on  his  cushions, 
he  confided  to  the  lean,  bronzed,  rhythmically  work- 
ing figure  standing  behind  him,  something  of  the 
puzzledom  of  his  soul.  Guiseppe,  in  the  practical 
Itahan  way,  interpreted  the  confidences  as  a  desire 
to  escape  from  the  tourist-agitated  and  fantastically 
expensive  quarters  of  the  city  into  some  unrufiled 
haven.  That  evening  he  interviewed  the  second 
cousin  of  his  wife,  the  Signora  ToneUi  of  the  Albergo 
of  that  name,  and  the  next  day  Sir  Hildebrand  took 
possession  of  the  front  room  overlooking  the  cam- 
piello,  on  the  piano  nobile  or  second  floor  of  the  hotel. 
And  here  Sir  Hildebrand  Oates,  Eoiight,  once 
Member  of  Parhament,  Lord  of  the  Manor,  Chairman 
of  Quarter  Sessions,  Director  of  great  companies, 
orchid  rival  of  His  Grace  the  Duke  of  Dunster,  im- 
portant and  impeccable  personage,  the  exact  tem- 
perature of  whose  bath  water  had  been  to  a  trem- 
bling household  a  matter  of  as  much  vital  concern  as 
the  salvation  of  their  own  souls  —  entered  upon  a 
life  of  queer  discomfort,  privation  and  humihty. 
For  the  first  time  in  his  life  he  experienced  the  hugger- 
mugger  makeshift  of  the  bed-sitting  room  —  a 
chamber,  too,  cold  and  comfortless,  with  one  scraggy 


THE  "SCOURGE"  245 

rug  by  the  bedside  to  mitigate  the  rigour  of  an  inlaid 
floor  looking  like  a  galantine  of  veal,  once  the  pride 
of  the  palazzo,  and  meagrely  furnished  with  the 
barest  objects  of  necessity,  and  these  of  monstrous 
and  incongruous  ugliness;  and  he  learned  in  the 
redolent  restaurant  downstairs,  the  way  to  eat 
spaghetti  like  a  contented  beast  and  the  relish  of 
sour  wine  and  the  overrated  importance  of  the 
cleanliness  of  cutlery.  In  his  dignified  acceptance 
of  surroundings  that  to  him  were  squahd,  he  mani- 
fested his  essential  breeding.  The  correct  courtesy 
of  his  demeanour  gained  for  the  illustrissimo  signore 
inglese  the  wholehearted  respect  of  the  Signore  and 
Signora  Tonelli.  And  the  famous  scourge  nailed 
(symbohcaJly)  over  his  hard  httle  bed  procured  him 
a  terrible  reputation  for  piety  in  the  parrocchia. 
After  a  while,  indeed,  as  soon  as  he  had  settled  to  his 
new  mode  of  hving,  the  inveterate  habit  of  punctilio 
caused  him,  almost  unconsciously,  to  fix  by  the  clock 
his  day's  routine.  Called  at  eight  o'clock,  a  kind  of 
eight  conjectured  by  the  good-humoured,  tousled 
sloven  of  a  chamber-maid,  he  dressed  with  scrupu- 
lous care.  At  nine  he  descended  for  his  morning 
coffee  to  the  chill  deserted  restam-ant  —  for  all  the 
revolution  in  his  existence  he  could  not  commit  the 
immorahty  of  breakfasting  in  his  bedroom.  At 
half-past  he  regained  his  room,  where,  till  eleven,  he 
wrote  by  the  window  overlooking  the  lu'chin- 
resonant  campiello.  Then  with  gloves  and  cane,  to 
outwaid  appearance  the  immaculate,  the  impeccable 
Sir  Hildebrand  Gates  of  Eresby  Manor,  he  walked 
through    the   narrow,    twisting   streets    and   ovesc 


246  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

bridges  and  across  campi  and  campiello  to  the 
Piazza  San  Marco.  As  soon  as  he  neared  the  east- 
end  of  the  great  square,  a  seller  of  com  and  peas 
approached  him,  handed  him  a  paper  comet,  from 
which  Sir  Hildebrand,  with  awful  gravity,  fed  the 
pigeons.  And  the  pigeons  looked  for  him,  too;  and 
they  perched  on  his  araas  and  his  shoulders  and  even 
on  the  crown  of  his  Homburg  hat,  the  brim  of  which 
he  had,  by  way  of  solenm  rite,  filled  with  grain,  until 
the  gaunt,  grey,  unsmiling  man  was  hidden  in  fluttering 
iridescence.  And  tourists  and  idlers  used  to  come 
every  day  and  look  at  him,  as  at  one  of  the  sights  of 
Venice.  The  supply  finished,  Sir  Hildebrand  went 
to  the  Cafe  Florian  on  the  south  of  the  Piazza  and 
ordering  a  sirop  which  he  seldom  drank,  read  the 
Corriere  de  la  Sera,  until  the  midday  gun  sent  the 
pigeons  whirring  to  their  favourite  cornices.  Then 
Sir  Hildebrand  retraced  his  steps  to  the  Albergo 
ToneUi,  lunched,  read  till  three,  wrote  till  five,  and 
again  went  out  to  take  the  air.  Dinner,  half  an 
hour's  courtly  gossip  in  the  cramped  and  smelly 
apology  for  a  lounge,  with  landlord  or  a  commercial 
traveller  disinclined  for  theatre  or  music-hall,  or  the 
absorbing  amusement  of  Venice,  walking  in  the 
Piazza  or  along  the  Riva  Schiavoni,  and  then  to  read 
or  write  till  bedtime. 

No  Enghshman  of  any  social  position  can  stand 
daily  in  the  Piazza  San  Marco  without  now  and  then 
coming  across  acquaintances,  least  of  all  a  man  of 
such  importance  in  his  day  as  Sir  Hildebrand  Gates. 
He  accepted  the  greetings  of  chance-met  friends  with 
courteous  resignation. 


THE     SCOURGE  247 

"We're  at  the  Hotel  de  I'Europe.  Where  are  you 
staying,  Sir  Hildebrand?" 

"  I  live  in  Venice,  I  have  made  it  my  home.  You 
see  the  birds  accept  me  as  one  of  themselves." 

"You'll  come  and  dine  with  us,  won't  you.^^" 

"I  should  love  to,"  Sir  Hildebrand  would  reply; 
"but  for  the  next  month  or  so  I  am  overwhelmed 
with  work.  I'm  so  sorry.  If  you  have  any  time  to 
spare,  and  would  like  to  get  off  the  beaten  track,  let 
me  recommend  you  to  wander  through  the  Giudecca 
on  foot.  I  hope  Lady  Ehzabeth  is  well.  I'm  so 
glad.  Will  you  give  her  my  kindest  regards? 
Good-bye."  And  Sir  Hildebrand  would  make  his 
irreproachable  bow  and  take  his  leave.  No  one 
learned  where  he  had  made  his  home  in  Venice. 
In  fact,  no  one  but  Messrs.  Thomas  Cook  and  Son 
knew  his  address.  He  banked  with  them  and  they 
forwarded  his  letters  to  the  Albergo  ToneUi. 

It  has  been  said  that  Sir  Hildebrand  occupied 
much  of  his  time  in  writing,  and  he  himself  declared 
that  he  was  overwhelmed  with  work.  He  was  indeed 
engaged  in  an  absorbing  task  of  literary  composition, 
and  his  reference  hbrary  consisted  in  thirty  or  forty 
leather-covered  volumes  each  fitted  with  a  clasp  and 
lock,  of  which  the  key  hung  at  the  end  of  his  watch- 
chain;  and  every  page  of  every  volume  was  filled 
with  his  own  small,  precise  handwriting.  He  made 
slow  progress,  for  the  work  demanded  concentrated 
thought  and  close  reasoning.  The  rumour  of  his 
occupation  having  spread  through  the  parrocchia, 
he  acquired,  in  addition  to  that  of  a  pietist,  the  repu- 
tation of  an  erudito.    He  became  the  pride  of  the 


248  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

campiello.  When  he  crossed  the  little  square,  the 
inhabitants  pointed  him  out  to  less  fortunate  out- 
dwellers.  There  was  the  great  English  noble  who 
had  made  vows  of  poverty,  and  gave  himself  the 
Discipline  and  wrote  wonderful  works  of  Theology. 
And  men  touched  their  hats  and  women  saluted 
shyly,  and  Sir  Hildebrand  punctiliously,  and  with 
a  queer  pathetic  gratitude,  responded.  Even  the 
children  gave  him  a  "Buon  giomo,  Signore,"  and 
smiled  up  into  his  face,  unconscious  of  the  pious 
scholar  he  was  supposed  to  be,  and  of  the  almighty 
potentate  that  he  had  been.  Once,  yielding  to  an 
obscure  though  powerful  instinct,  he  purchased  in 
the  Merceria  a  packet  of  chocolates,  and  on  entering 
his  campiello  presented  them,  with  stupendous 
gravity  concealing  extreme  embarrassment,  to  a 
httle  gang  of  urchins.  Encouraged  by  a  dazzling 
success,  he  made  it  a  rule  to  distribute  sweetmeats 
every  Saturday  morning  to  the  children  of  the 
campiello.  After  a  while  he  learned  their  names  and 
idiosyncrasies,  and  held  solemn  though  kindly 
speech  with  them,  manifesting  an  interest  in  their 
games  and  questioning  them  sympathetically  as  to 
their  scholastic  attainments.  Sometimes  gathering 
from  their  talk  a  notion  of  the  desperate  poverty  of 
parents,  he  put  a  lire  or  two  into  grubby  httle  fists, 
in  spite  of  a  lifelong  conviction  of  the  immorahty 
of  indiscriminate  almsgiving;  and  dark,  hag- 
gard mothers  blessed  him,  and  stood  in  his  way 
to  catch  his  smile.  All  of  which  was  pleasant, 
though  exceedingly  puzzling  to  3ir  Hildebrand, 
Oates. 


THE     SCOURGE  249 

VIII 

Between  two  and  three  years  after  their  mother's 
death,  Sir  Hildebrand's  son  and  daughter,  who  bore 
each  other  a  devoted  affection  and  carried  on  a  con- 
stant correspondence,  arranged  to  meet  in  England, 
Godfrey  travelling  from  Canada,  Sybil,  with  her 
children,  from  India.  The  first  thing  they  learned 
(from  Haversham,  the  lawyer)  was  the  extent  of  their 
father's  financial  ruin.  They  knew  —  many  kind 
friends  had  told  them  —  that  he  had  had  losses  and 
had  retired  from  public  life;  but,  hving  out  of  the 
world,  and  accepting  their  childhood's  tradition  of 
his  incalculable  wealth,  they  had  taken  it  for  granted 
that  he  continued  to  lead  a  life  of  elegant  luxury. 
When  Haversham,  one  of  the  few  people  who  really 
knew,  informed  them  (with  a  revengeful  smile)  that 
their  father  could  not  possibly  have  more  than  a 
hundred  or  two  a  year,  they  were  shocked  to  the 
depths  of  their  clean,  matter-of-fact  English  souls. 
The  Great  Panjandrum,  arbiter  of  destinies,  had 
been  brought  low,  was  hving  in  obscurity  in  Italy. 
The  pity  of  it!  As  they  interchanged  glances  the 
same  thought  leaped  into  the  eyes  of  each. 

"  We  must  look  him  up  and  see  what  can  be  done," 
said  Godfrey. 

"  Of  course,  dear,"  said  Sybil. 

"  I  offered  him  the  use  of  Eresby,  but  he  was  too 
proud  to  take  it." 

"And  I  never  offered  him  anything  at  all,"  said 
Sybil. 

"I  should  advise  you,"  said  Haversham,  "to  leave 
Sir  Hildebrand  alone." 


250  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

Godfrey,  a  high-mettled  young  man  and  one  who 
was  accustomed  to  arrive  at  his  own  decisions,  and 
moreover  did  not  like  Haversham,  gripped  his  sister 
by  the  arm. 

"Whatever  advice  you  give  me,  Mr.  Haversham,  I 
will  take  just  when  I  think  it  necessary." 

"That  is  the  attitude  of  most  of  my  clients,"  re- 
plied Haversham  drily,  "whether  it  is  a  sound  at- 
titude or  not "  he  waved  an  expressive  hand. 

"  We'll  go  and  hunt  him  up,  anyway,"  said  Godfrey. 
"  If  he's  impossible,  we  can  come  back.  If  he  isn't  — 
so  much  the  better.    What  do  you  say,  Sybil.^" 

Sybil  said  what  he  knew  she  would  say. 

"Sir  Hildebrand's  address  is  vague,"  remarked 
Haversham.    "Cook's,  Venice." 

"What  more,  in  Hades,  do  we  want.^"  cried  the 
young  man. 

So,  after  Sybil  had  made  arrangements  for  the  safe 
keeping  of  her  offspring,  and  Godfrey  and  herself 
had  written  to  announce  their  coming,  the  pair  set 
out  for  Venice. 

"We  are  very  sorry,  but  we  are  unable  to  give  you 
Sir  Hildebrand  Oates's  address,"  said  Messrs. 
Thomas  Cook  and  Son. 

Godfrey  protested.  "We  are  his  son  and 
daughter,"  he  said,  in  effect.  "We  have  reason  to 
beUeve  our  father  is  hving  in  poverty.  We  have 
written  and  he  has  not  replied.    We  must  find  him." 

Identity  established,  Messrs.  Thomas  Cook  and 
Son  disclosed  the  whereabouts  of  their  customer.  A 
gondola  took  brother  and  sister  to  the  Campo  facing 
the  west  front  of  the  church  behind  which  lay  the 


THE     SCOURGE  251 

Campiello  where  the  hotel  was  situated.  Their 
hearts  sank  low  as  they  beheld  the  mildewed  decay 
of  the  Albergo  ToneUi,  lower  as  they  entered  the 
cool,  canal-smeUing  trattoria  —  or  restaurant,  the 
main  entrance  to  the  Albergo.  Signore  Tonelli 
in  shirt  sleeves  greeted  them.  What  was  their 
pleasure? 

"Sir  Hildebrand  Gates?" 

At  first  from  his  rapid  and  incomprehensible 
Italian  they  could  gather  httle  else  than  the  fact  of 
their  father's  absence  from  home.  After  a  while  the 
reiteration  of  the  words  ospedale  inglese  made  an 
impression  on  their  minds. 

''Malade?"  asked  Sybil,  trying  the  only  foreign 
language  with  which  she  had  a  shght  acquaintance. 

"iSi,  si7"  cried  ToneUi,  delighted  at  eventual  under- 
standing. 

And  then  a  Providence-sent  bagman  who  spoke  a 
little  Enghsh  came  out  and  interpreted. 

The  illustrissimo  signore  was  ill.  A  pneumonia. 
He  had  stood  to  feed  the  pigeons  in  the  rain,  in  the 
northeast  wind,  and  had  contracted  a  chill.  When 
they  thought  he  was  dying,  they  sent  for  the  English 
doctor  who  had  attended  him  before  for  trifling 
aihnents,  and  unconscious  he  had  been  transported 
to  the  English  hospital  in  the  Giudecca.  And  there 
he  was  now.  A  thousand  pities  he  should  die.  The 
dearest  and  most  revered  man.  The  whole  neigh- 
bourhood who  loved  him  was  stricken  with  grief. 
They  prayed  for  him  in  the  church,  the  signore  and 
signora  could  see  it  there,  and  vows  and  candles  had 
been  made  to  the  Virgin,  the  Blessed  Mother,  for  he 


252  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

too  loved  all  children.  Signore  Tonelli,  joined  by 
this  time  by  his  wife,  exaggerated  perhaps  in  the  im- 
aginative Italian  way.  But  every  tone  and  gesture 
sprang  from  deep  sincerity.  Brother  and  sister 
looked  at  each  other  in  dumb  wonder. 

''Ecco,  Elizabetta!''  ToneUi,  commanding  the  door- 
way of  the  restaurant,  summoned  an  elderly  woman 
from  the  pump  by  the  well-head  and  discoursed 
volubly.  She  approached  the  yoimg  Enghsh  couple 
and  also  volubly  discoursed.  The  interpreter  in- 
terpreted. They  gained  confirmation  of  the  amazing 
fact  that,  in  this  squahd,  stone-flagged,  rickety  little 
square,  Sir  Hildebrand  had  managed  to  make  him- 
self beloved.  Childhood's  memories  rose  within 
them,  half-caught,  but  haunting  sayings  of  ser- 
vants and  villagers  which  had  impressed  upon  their 
minds  the  detestation  in  which  he  was  held  in  their 
Somersetshire  home. 

Godfrey  turned  to  his  sister.  "  Well,  I'm  damned," 
said  he. 

"I  should  like  to  see  his  rooms,"  said  Sybil. 

The  interpreter  again  interpreted.  The  Tonellis 
threw  out  their  arms.  Of  course  they  could  visit  the 
apartment  of  the  illustrissimo  signore.  They  were 
led  upstairs  and  ushered  into  the  chill,  dark  bed- 
sitting-room,  as  ascetic  as  a  monk's  cell,  and  both 
gasped  when  they  beheld  the  flagellum  hanging  from 
its  nail  over  the  bed.  They  requested  privacy. 
The  ToneUis  and  the  bagman-interpreter  retired. 

"What  the  devil's  the  meaning  of  it.»^"  said  God- 
frey. 

Sybil,   kind-hearted,   began  to  cry.    Something 


THE     SCOURGE  253 

strange  and  piteous,  something  elusive  had  happened. 
The  awful,  poverty-stricken  room  chilled  her  blood, 
and  the  sight  of  the  venomous  scourge  froze  it.  She 
caught  and  held  Godfrey's  hand.  Had  their  father 
gone  over  to  Rome  and  turned  ascetic?  They  looked 
bewildered  around  the  room.  But  no  other  sign, 
crucifix,  rosary,  sacred  picture,  betokened  the  pious 
convert.  They  scanned  the  rough  deal  bookshelf. 
A  few  dull  volumes  of  Enghsh  classics,  a  feW  works  on 
sociology  in  French  and  Itahan,  a  flagrantly  staring 
red  Burke's  Landed  Gentry,  and  that  was  practically 
all  the  library.  Not  one  book  of  devotion  was 
visible,  save  the  Bible,  the  Book  of  Common  Prayer, 
and  a  little  vellum-covered  Elzevir  edition  of  Saint 
Augustine's  Flammuks  Amoris,  which  Godfrey  re- 
membered from  childhood  on  account  of  its  quaint 
wood-cuts.  They  could  see  nothing  indicative  of 
rehgious  life  but  the  flagellum  over  the  bed  —  and 
that  seemed  curiously  new  and  unused.  Again  they 
looked  around  the  bare  characterless  room,  char- 
acteristic only  of  its  occupant  by  its  scrupulous 
tidiness;  yet  one  object  at  last  attracted  their  at- 
tention. On  a  deal  writing-table  by  the  window  lay 
a  thick  pile  of  manuscript.  Godfrey  turned  the 
brown  paper  covering.  Standing  together,  brother 
and  sister  read  the  astounding  title-page: 

"An  enquiry  into  my  wife's  justification  for  the 
following  terms  of  her  will:  — 

"'I  will  and  bequeath  to  my  husband.  Sir  Hilde- 
brand  Oates,  Knight,  the  sum  of  fifteen  shillings  to 
buy  himself  a  scourge  to  do  penance  for  the  ar- 
rogance, uncharitableness  and  cruelty  with  which  he 


254  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

has  treated  myself  and  my  beloved  children  for  the 
last  thu-ty  years.' 

"This  dispassionate  enquiry  I  dedicate  to  my  son 
Godfrey  and  my  daughter  Sybil." 

Brother  and  sister  regarded  each  other  with  drawn 
faces  and  mutually  questioning  eyes. 

"We  can't  leave  this  lying  about,"  said  Godfrey. 
And  he  tucked  the  manuscript  under  his  arm. 

The  gondola  took  them  through  the  narrow  water- 
ways to  the  Grand  Canal  of  the  Giudecca,  where,  on 
the  Zattere  side,  all  the  wave-worn  merchant  shipping 
of  Venice  and  Trieste  and  Fiume  and  Genoa  finds 
momentary  rest,  and  across  to  the  low  bridge-arch- 
way of  the  canal  cutting  through  the  island,  on  the 
side  of  which  is  Lady  Layard's  modest  Enghsh 
hospital.  Yes,  said  the  matron,  Sir  Hildebrand  was 
there.  Pneumonia.  Getting  on  as  well  as  could  be 
expected;  but  impossible  to  see  him.  She  would  tele- 
phone to  their  hotel  in  the  morning. 

That  night,  until  dawn,  Godfrey  read  the  manu- 
script, a  document  of  soul-gripping  interest.  It  was 
neither  an  apologia  pro  vita  sua,  nor  a  breast-beating 
peccavi  cry  of  confession;  but  a  minute  analysis  of 
every  remembered  incident  in  the  relations  between 
his  family  and  himself  from  the  first  pragmatical  days 
of  his  wedding  journey.  And  judicially  he  deUvered 
judgments  in  the  terse,  lucid  French  form.  "  Whereas 
I,  etc.,  etc.  ..."  and  "whereas  my  wife,  etc.,  etc. 
.  .  . "  —  setting  forth  and  balancing  the  facts  — 
"it  is  my  opinion  that  I  acted  arrogantly,"  or  "un- 
charitably," or  "cruelly."  Now  and  again,  though 
rarely,  the  judgments  went  in  his  favour.    But  in- 


THE     SCOURGE  255 

variably  the  words  were  added:  "I  am  willing,  how- 
ever, in  this  case,  to  submit  to  the  decision  of  any 
arbitrator  or  court  of  appeal  my  children  may  think 
it  worth  while  to  appoint." 

The  last  words,  scrawled  shakily  in  pencil,  were: 

"  I  have  not,  to  my  great  regret,  been  able  to  bring 
this  record  up-to-date;  but  as  I  am  very  ill  and,  at 
my  age,  may  not  recover,  I  feel  it  my  duty  to  say  that, 
as  far  as  my  two  years'  painful  examination  into  my 
past  life  warrants  my  judgment,  I  am  of  the  opinion 
that  my  wife  had  ample  justification  for  the  terms  she 
employed  regarding  me  in  her  will.  Fmthermore,  if, 
as  is  probable,  I  should  die  of  my  illness,  I  should  like 
my  children  to  know  that  long  ere  this  I  have  deeply 
desired  in  my  loneliness  to  stretch  out  my  arms  to 
them  in  affection  and  beg  their  forgiveness,  but  that 
I  have  been  prevented  from  so  doing  by  the  appalling 
fear  that,  I  being  now  very  poor  and  they  being  very 
rich,  my  overtures,  considering  the  lack  of  affection  I 
have  exhibited  to  them  in  the  past  might  be  mis- 
interpreted. The  British  Consul  here,  who  has 
kindly  consented  to  be  my  executor,  will  ..." 

And  then  strength  had  evidently  failed  him  and  he 
could  write  no  more. 

The  next  morning  Godfrey  related  to  his  sister 
what  he  had  read  and  gave  her  the  manuscript  to 
read  at  her  convenience;  and  together  they  went  to 
the  hospital  and  obtained  from  the  doctor  his  some- 
what pessimistic  report;  and  then  again  they  visited 
the  Albergo  ToneUi  and  learned  more  of  the  strange, 
stiff  and  benevolent  hfe  of  Sir  Hildebrand  Gates. 
Once  more  they  mounted  to  the  cold  cheerless  room 


256  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

where  their  father  had  spent  the  past  two  years. 
Godfrey  unhooked  the  scourge  from  the  nail. 

"What  are  you  going  to  do?"  Sybil  asked,  her 
eyes  full  of  tears. 

"I'm  going  to  burn  the  damned  thing.  Whether 
he  lives  or  dies,  the  poor  old  chap's  penance  is  at  an 
end.  By  God!  he  has  done  enough."  He  turned 
upon  her  swiftly.  "You  don't  feel  any  resentment 
against  him  now,  do  you?" 

"Resentment?"  Her  voice  broke  on  the  word 
and  she  cast  herself  on  the  hard  little  bed  and  sobbed. 


IX 

And  so  it  came  to  pass  that  a  new  Sir  Hildebrand 
Gates,  with  a  humble  and  a  contrite  heart,  which  we 
are  told  the  Lord  doth  not  despise,  came  into  resi- 
dence once  more  at  Eresby  Manor,  agent  for  his  son 
and  guardian  of  his  daughter's  children.  Godfrey 
transferred  his  legal  business  from  Haversham  to  a 
younger  practitioner  in  the  neighbourhood  to  whom 
Sir  Hildebrand  showed  a  stately  deference.  And 
every  day,  being  a  man  of  habit  —  instinctive  habit 
which  no  revolution  of  the  soul  can  alter  —  he 
visited  his  wife's  grave  in  the  little  churchyard,  a 
stone's  throw  from  the  manor  house,  and  in  his  fancy 
a  cloud  of  pigeons  came  iridescent,  darkening  the 
air.  .  .  . 

'  The  County  called,  but  he  held  himself  aloof.  He 
was  no  longer  the  all-important  unassailable  man. 
He  had  come  through  many  fires  to  a  wisdom  im- 
dreamed  of  by  the  Coimty.    Hiunan  love  had  touched 


THE     SCOURGE  257 

him  with  its  simple  angel  wing  —  the  love  of  son  and 
daughter,  the  love  of  the  rude  souls  in  the  squalid 
Venetian  Campiello;  and  the  patter  of  children's 
feet,  the  soft  and  trusting  touch  of  children's  hands, 
the  glad  welcome  of  children's  voices,  had  brought 
him  back  to  the  elemental  wells  of  happiness. 

One  afternoon,  the  butler  entering  the  dining- 
room  with  the  announcement  "His  Grace,  the  Duke 

of "  gasped,  unable  to  finish  the  title.    For  there 

was  Sir  Hildebrand  Oates  —  younger  at  fifty-nine 
than  he  was  at  thirty  —  lying  prone  on  the  hearth- 
rug, with  a  pair  of  flushed  infants  astride  on  the  softer 
portions  of  his  back,  using  the  once  almighty  man 
as  a  being  of  httle  account.  Sir  Hildebrand  turned 
his  long  chin  and  long  nose  up  towards  his  visitor, 
and  there  was  a  new  smile  in  his  eyes. 

"Sorry,  Duke,"  said  he,  "but  you  see,  I  can't  get 
up." 


MY  SHADOW  FRIENDS 


MY  SHADOW  FRIENDS 

MY  gentle  readers  have  been  good  enough  to 
ask  me  what  some  of  the  folk  whose  ad- 
ventm'es  I  have  from  time  to  time  described 
have  done  in  the  Great  War.  It  is  a  large  question, 
for  they  are  so  many.  Most  of  them  have  done 
things  they  never  dreamed  they  would  be  called 
upon  to  do.  Those  that  survived  tiU  1914  have 
worked,  Hke  the  rest  of  the  community  in  England 
and  France,  according  to  their  several  capacities, 
in  the  Holiest  Crusade  in  the  history  of  mankind. 

Well,  let  me  plunge  at  once  into  the  midst  of 
things. 

About  a  year  ago  the  great  voice  of  Jafifery  came 
booming  across  my  lawn.  He  was  a  Lieutenant- 
Colonel,  and  a  D.S.O.,  and  his  great  red  beard  had 
gone.  The  same,  but  yet  a  subtly  different  Jaffery. 
Liosha  was  driving  a  motor-lorry  in  France.  He  told 
me  she  was  having  the  time  of  her  life. 

I  have  heard,  too,  of  my  old  friend  Sir  Marcus, 
leaner  than  ever  and  clad  in  iU-fitting  khaki,  and 
sitting  in  a  dreary  office  in  Havre  with  piles  of 
browny-yellow  army  forms  before  him,  on  which  he 
had  checked  packing-cases  of  bully-beef  ever  since 
the  war  began.  And  if  you  visit  a  certain  hospital 
—  in  Manchester  of  all  places,  so  dislocating  has 

261 


262  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

been  the  war  —  there  you  will  still  see  Lady  Ordeyne 
(it  always  gives  me  a  shock  to  think  of  Carlotta  as 
Lady  Ordeyne)  matronly  and  inefficient,  but  the 
joy  and  delight  of  every  wounded  man. 

And  Septimus?  Did  you  not  know  that  the  Dix 
gmi  was  used  at  the  front?  His  great  new  invention, 
the  aero-tank,  I  regret  to  say,  was  looked  on  coldly 
by  the  War  Office.  Now  that  Peace  has  come  he  is 
trying,  so  Brigadier-General  Sir  Clem  Sypher  tells 
me,  to  adapt  it  to  the  intensive  cultivation  of  white- 
bait. 

And  I  have  heard  a  few  stories  of  others.  Here  is 
one  told  me  by  a  French  officer,  one  Colonel  Girault. 
The  scene  was  a  road  bridge  on  the  outskirts  of  the 
zone  of  the  armies.  His  car  had  broken  down  hope- 
lessly, and  with  much  profane  language  he  swung  to 
the  bridge-head.  The  sentry  saluted.  He  was  an 
elderly  Territorial  with  a  ragged  pair  of  canvas 
trousers  and  a  ragged  old  blue  uniform  coat  and  a 
battered  kepi  and  an  ancient  rifle.  A  scarecrow  of  a 
sentry,  such  as  were  seen  on  all  the  roads  of  France. 

"How  far  is  it  to  the  village?" 

"Two  kilometres,  mon  ColoneV* 

There  was  something  famihar  in  the  voice  and  in 
the  dark,  humorous  eyes. 

"Say,  mon  vieux,  what  is  your  name?"  asked 
Colonel  Girault. 

"Gaston  de  Nerac,  mon  ColoneV* 

"Connais  pas,''  murmured  the  Colonel,  turning 
away. 

"Exalted  rank  makes  Gigi  Girault  forget  the 
lessons  of  humility  he  learned  in  the  Cafe  Delphine." 


MY  SHADOW  FRIENDS  263 

Colonel  Girault  stood  with  mouth  agape.  Then 
he  laughed  and  threw  himself  into  the  arms  of  the 
dilapidated  sentry. 

''Mon  Dieu!    It  is  true.    It  is  ParagotI" 

Then  afterwards:  "And  what  can  I  do  for  you, 
mon  vieux?'' 

"Nothing,"  said  Paragot.  "The  bon  Dieu  has 
done  everything.  He  has  allowed  me  to  be  a  soldier 
of  France  in  my  old  age." 

And  Colonel  Girault  told  me  that  he  asked  for 
news  of  the  little  Asticot  —  a  painter  who  ought  by 
now  to  be  famous.    Paragot  replied: 

"He  is  over  there,  killing  Boches  for  his  old 
master." 

Do  you  remember  Paul  Savelli,  the  Fortunate 
Youth?  He  hved  to  see  his  dream  of  a  great, 
awakened  England  come  true.  He  feU  leading  his 
men  on  a  glorious  day.  His  Princess  wears  on  her 
nurse's  uniform  the  Victoria  Cross  which  he  had 
earned  in  that  last  heroic  charge,  but  did  not  live 
to  wear.  And  she  walks  serene  and  gracious,  teach- 
ing proud  women  how  to  mourn. 

What  of  Quixtus?  He  sacrificed  his  leisure  to  the 
task  of  sitting  in  a  dim  room  of  the  Foreign  Ojffice  for 
ten  hours  a  day  in  front  of  masses  of  Germgui  pub- 
hcations,  and  scheduling  with  his  scientific  method 
and  accuracy  the  German  lies.  Clementina  saw 
him  only  on  Sundays.  She  turned  her  beautiful 
house  on  the  river  into  a  maternity  home  for  soldiers' 
wives.  Tommy,  the  graceless,  when  last  home  on 
leave,  said  that  she  was  capable  of  murdering  the 
mothers  so  as  to  collar  all  the  babies  for  herself. 


264  FAR-AWAY  STORIES 

And  Clementina  smiled  as  though  acknowledging  a 
compliment.  "Once  every  few  years  you  are  quite 
inteUigent,  Tommy,"  she  replied. 

I  have  heard,  too,  that  Simon,  who  jested  so  with 
life,  and  Lola  of  the  maimed  face,  went  out  to  a 
Serbian  hospital,  and  together  won  through  the 
horror  of  the  retreat.  They  are  still  out  there, 
sharing  in  Serbia's  victory,  and  the  work  of  Serbia's 
reconstruction. 

In  the  early  days  of  the  war,  in  Regent  Street,  I 
was  vehemently  accosted  by  a  little  man  wearing 
the  uniform  of  a  French  captain.  He  had  bright 
eyes,  and  a  clean  shaven  chin  which  for  the  moment 
perplexed  me,  and  a  swaggering  moustache. 

"Just  over  for  a  few  hours  to  see  the  wife  and  Uttle 
Jean." 

"But,"  said  I,  "what  are  you  doing  in  this  kit? 
You  went  out  as  a  broken-down  Territorial." 

*^Mon  cher  ami,**  he  cried,  straddling  across  the 
pavement  to  the  obstruction  of  traffic,  and  regarding 
me  mirthfully,  "it  is  the  greatest  farce  on  the  world. 
Imagine  me!  I,  a  broken-down  Teerritorial,  as  you 
call  me,  bearded  a  lion  of  a  General  of  Division  in  his 
den  —  and  I  came  out  a  Captain.  Come  into  the 
Cafe  Royal  and  I'll  tell  you  all  about  it." 

His  story  I  cannot  set  down  here,  but  it  is  not  the 
least  amazing  of  the  joyous  adventures  of  my  friend 
Aristide  Pujol. 

What  Doggie  and  Jeanne  did  in  the  war,  my  gentle 
readers  know.  Their  first  child  was  bom  on  the 
glorious  morning  of  November  11,  1918,  amid  the 
pealing  of  bells  and  shouts  of  rejoicing.    When 


MY  SHADOW  FRIENDS  265 

Doggie  crept  into  the  Sacred  Room  of  Wonderment, 
he  fomid  the  babe  wrapped  up  in  the  Union  Jack  and 
the  Tricolom*.  "There's  only  one  name  for  him," 
whispered  Jeanne  with  streaming  eyes,  "Victor I" 

To  leave  fantasy  for  the  brutal  fact.  You  may 
say  these  friends  of  mine  are  but  shadows.  It  is 
true.  But  shadows  are  not  cast  by  nothingness. 
These  friends  must  live  substantially  and  cor- 
poreally, although  in  the  flesh  I  have  never  met  them. 
Some  strange  and  unguessed  sun  has  cast  their 
shadows  across  my  path.  I  know  that  somewhere  or 
the  other  they  have  their  actual  habitation,  and  I 
know  that  they  have  done  the  things  I  have  above 
recounted.  These  shadows  of  things  unseen  are 
real.  In  fable  hes  essential  truth.  These  shadows 
that  now  pass  quivering  before  my  eyes  have  be- 
hind them  great,  pulsating  embodiments  of  men  and 
women,  in  England  and  France,  who  have  given  up 
their  hves  to  the  great  work  which  is  to  cleanse  the 
foulness  of  the  Central  Empires  of  Europe,  regener- 
ate humanity,  and  bring  Freedom  to  God's  beautiful 
earth. 

THE  END 


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